Do just so, my Lucilius: lay claim to yourself for yourself; and the time that until now was being taken from you, or filched, or slipping away, gather it up and keep it safe. Convince yourself that it is as I write: some moments are snatched from us, some are stolen, some simply drain away. But the most shameful loss is the one that comes through neglect. And if you will only attend, the largest part of life slips by for those who do badly, a great part for those who do nothing, the whole of life for those who do something other than what they should.

Ita fac, mi Lucili; vindica te tibi, et tempus, quod adhuc aut auferebatur aut subripiebatur aut excidebat, collige et serva. Persuade tibi hoc sic esse, ut scribo: quaedam tempora eripiuntur nobis, quaedam subducuntur, quaedam effluunt. Turpissima tamen est iactura, quae per neglegentiam fit. Et si volueris attendere, maxima pars vitae elabitur male agentibus, magna nihil agentibus, tota vita aliud agentibus.

Whom will you show me that sets any price on time, that reckons the worth of a day, that understands he is dying daily? For in this we are deceived, that we look ahead to death, when a great part of it has already gone by: whatever stretch of life lies behind us, death holds it. Do then, my Lucilius, what you write that you are doing: embrace every hour. It will come about that you hang less upon tomorrow if you lay your hand on today. While it is put off, life races past.

Quem mihi dabis, qui aliquod pretium tempori ponat, qui diem aestimet, qui intellegat se cotidie mori? In hoc enim fallimur, quod mortem prospicimus; magna pars eius iam praeterit. Quicquid aetatis retro est, mors tenet. Fac ergo, mi Lucili, quod facere te scribis, omnes horas conplectere. Sic fiet, ut minus ex crastino pendeas, si hodierno manum inieceris. Dum differtur, vita transcurrit.

All things, Lucilius, are another’s; time alone is ours. Into the possession of this one fleeting and slippery thing nature has sent us, and out of it she expels us at anyone’s pleasure. And so great is the folly of mortals that they let the smallest and cheapest things — things, at least, that can be replaced — be charged to their account when they have got them, while no one who has received time judges that he owes anything for it, though this is the one thing that not even a grateful man can pay back.

Omnia, Lucili, aliena sunt, tempus tantum nostrum est. In huius rei unius fugacis ac lubricae possessionem natura nos misit, ex qua expellit quicumque vult. Et tanta stultitia mortalium est, ut quae minima et vilissima sunt, certe reparabilia, imputari sibi, cum impetravere, patiantur; nemo se iudicet quicquam debere, qui tempus accepit, cum interim hoc unum est, quod ne gratus quidem potest reddere.

You will ask, perhaps, what I myself do, who lay down these rules for you. I will confess frankly: as happens with a spendthrift who is yet careful, the account of my spending comes out even. I cannot say that I waste nothing, but I can say what I waste, and why, and how; I will render the reasons for my poverty. But it falls out with me as with most who have been reduced to want through no fault of their own: everyone pardons, no one helps.

Interrogabis fortasse, quid ego faciam, qui tibi ista praecipio. Fatebor ingenue: quod apud luxuriosum sed diligentem evenit, ratio mihi constat inpensae. Non possum me dicere nihil perdere, sed quid perdam et quare et quemadmodum, dicam; causas paupertatis meae reddam, sed evenit mihi, quod plerisque non suo vitio ad inopiam redactis: omnes ignoscunt, nemo succurrit.

What of it? I do not count him poor for whom the little that is left is enough. But you, I would rather, should keep what is yours, and you will begin at a good time. For, as our forebears held, thrift comes too late at the bottom of the jar: it is not only the least that remains at the dregs, but the worst. Farewell.

Quid ergo est? Non puto pauperem, cui quantulumcumque superest, sat est. Tu tamen malo serves tua, et bono tempore incipies. Nam ut visum est maioribus nostris, sera parsimonia in fundo est. Non enim tantum minimum in imo, sed pessimum remanet. Vale.

From what you write to me, and from what I hear, I conceive a good hope of you: you do not run about, nor unsettle yourself with changes of place. That tossing about is the mark of a sick mind. The first proof of a well-ordered mind, I judge, is to be able to halt and to linger with itself.

Ex iis quae mihi scribis, et ex iis quae audio, bonam spem de te concipio; non discurris nec locorum mutationibus inquietaris. Aegri animi ista iactatio est. Primum argumentum conpositae mentis existimo posse consistere et secum morari.

But see to it that this reading of many authors and of books of every kind does not carry something rambling and unsteady. You must dwell on certain minds and feed on them, if you would draw out anything to settle faithfully in the soul. He who is everywhere is nowhere. To those who spend their life in travel it happens that they have many lodgings but no friendships; and the same must befall those who attach themselves intimately to no one mind, but pass through everything at a run, in haste.

Illud autem vide, ne ista lectio auctorum multorum et omnis generis voluminum habeat aliquid vagum et instabile. Certis ingeniis inmorari et innutriri oportet, si velis aliquid trahere, quod in animo fideliter sedeat. Nusquam est, qui ubique est. Vitam in peregrinatione exigentibus hoc evenit, ut multa hospitia habeant, nullas amicitias. Idem accidat necesse est iis, qui nullius se ingenio familiariter applicant, sed omnia cursim et properantes transmittunt.

Food does no good and does not pass into the body if it is thrown up the moment it is taken; nothing so hinders health as a frequent changing of remedies; a wound does not come to a scar on which salves are tried one after another; a plant does not grow strong that is often transplanted. Nothing is so useful that it can profit in passing. A multitude of books distracts. And so, since you cannot read all you may have, it is enough to have as much as you can read.

Non prodest cibus nec corpori accedit, qui statim sumptus emittitur; nihil aeque sanitatem impedit quam remediorum crebra mutatio; non venit vulnus ad cicatricem, in quo medicamenta temptantur; non convalescit planta, quae saepe transfertur. Nihil tam utile est, ut in transitu prosit. Distringit librorum multitudo. Itaque cum legere non possis, quantum habueris, satis est habere, quantum legas.

"But," you say, "now I want to unroll this book, now that one." To taste many things is the mark of a squeamish stomach; and where they are varied and unlike, they foul rather than nourish. Read always, then, the approved authors, and if ever it please you to turn aside to others, come back to the first. Procure each day some help against poverty, something against death, and no less against the other plagues; and when you have run through much, pick out one thing to digest that day.

Sed modo, inquis, hunc librum evolvere volo, modo illum. Fastidientis stomachi est multa degustare; quae ubi varia, sunt et diversa, inquinant, non alunt. Probatos itaque semper lege, et si quando ad alios deverti libuerit, ad priores redi. Aliquid cotidie adversus paupertatem, aliquid adversus mortem auxilii compara, nec minus adversus ceteras pestes; et cum multa percurrens, unum excerpe, quod illo die concoquas.

This I do myself too: out of the many things I have read I lay hold of one. Today’s is this, which I came upon in Epicurus — for I am accustomed to cross over even into the enemy’s camp, not as a deserter, but as a scout:

Hoc ipse quoque facio; ex pluribus, quae legi, aliquid adprehendo. Hodiernum hoc est, quod apud Epicurum nanctus sum; soleo enim et in aliena castra transire, non tamquam transfuga, sed tamquam explorator.

"A cheerful poverty," he says, "is an honorable thing." But that is no poverty at all, if it is cheerful. It is not the man who has little, but the man who craves more, that is poor. For what does it matter how much lies in his strongbox, how much in his granaries, how many flocks he pastures or how much he lends at interest, if he hangs over another’s goods, if he reckons not what he has gained but what he has yet to gain? You ask what is the measure of wealth? First, to have what is necessary; next, to have what is enough. Farewell.

Honesta, inquit, res est laeta paupertas. Illa vero non est paupertas, si laeta est. Non qui parum habet, sed qui plus cupit, pauper est. Quid enim refert, quantum illi in arca, quantum in horreis iaceat, quantum pascat aut feneret, si alieno inminet, si non adquisita sed adquirenda computat? Quis sit divitiarum modus, quaeris? Primus habere quod necesse est, proximus quod sat est. Vale.

You handed letters to be delivered to me, as you write, to a friend of yours; then you warn me not to share with him everything that concerns you, since you are not in the habit of doing so yourself: thus in one and the same letter you have both called him a friend and denied it. Now if you used that particular word as a common term, and called him a friend the way we call all candidates "good men," the way we greet passers-by as "master" when their name escapes us — let it pass.

Epistulas ad me perferendas tradidisti, ut scribis, amico tuo; deinde admones me, ne omnia cum eo ad te pertinentia communicem, quia non soleas ne ipse quidem id facere; ita in eadem epistula illum et dixisti amicum et negasti. Itaque si proprio illo verbo quasi publico usus es et sic illum amicum vocasti, quomodo omnes candidatos bonos viros dicimus, quomodo obvios, si nomen non succurrit, dominos salutamus, hac abierit.

But if you count anyone a friend whom you do not trust as much as yourself, you are badly mistaken and do not well enough know the force of true friendship. With a friend, indeed, weigh everything — but first weigh the friend himself. After friendship is formed you must trust; before it is formed you must judge. Those men confound the order of their duties who, against the precepts of Theophrastus, love first and judge after, instead of judging first and loving after. Think long whether anyone is to be received into your friendship. When it has pleased you that it be done, admit him with your whole heart; speak with him as boldly as with yourself.

Sed si aliquem amicum existimas, cui non tantundem credis quantum tibi, vehementer erras et non satis nosti vim verae amicitiae. Tu vero omnia cum amico delibera, sed de ipso prius. Post amicitiam credendum est, ante amicitiam iudicandum. Isti vero praepostero officia permiscent, qui contra praecepta Theophrasti, cum amaverunt, iudicant, et non amant, cum iudicaverunt. Diu cogita, an tibi in amicitiam aliquis recipiendus sit. Cum placuerit fieri, toto illum pectore admitte; tam audaciter cum illo loquere quam tecum.

Live, indeed, so as to entrust to yourself nothing that you could not entrust even to your enemy; but since certain things arise that custom has made secret, share with a friend all your cares, all your thoughts. If you account him faithful, you will make him so. For some men have taught others to deceive by fearing to be deceived, and by their suspicion have granted the right to do wrong. Why should I hold back any words in my friend’s presence? Why should I not, when I am with him, think myself alone?

Tu quidem ita vive, ut nihil tibi committas, nisi quod committere etiam inimico tuo possis; sed quia interveniunt quaedam, quae consuetudo fecit arcana, cum amico omnes curas, omnes cogitationes tuas misce. Fidelem si putaveris, facies. Nam quidam fallere docuerunt, dum timent falli, et illi ius peccandi suspicando fecerunt. Quid est, quare ego ulla verba coram amico meo retraham? Quid est, quare me coram illo non putem solum?

Some men tell to any passer-by what ought to be entrusted to friends alone, and into any ears they unload whatever has pressed on them. Others, again, dread the knowledge even of their dearest, and — would, if they could, distrust even themselves — press every secret deeper within. Neither is to be done. For each is a fault: to trust all, and to trust none. But the one I would call the more honorable fault, the other the safer.

Quidam quae tantum amicis committenda sunt, obviis narrant et in quaslibet aures, quicquid illos urserit, exonerant. Quidam rursus etiam carissimorum conscientiam reformidant, et si possent, ne sibi quidem credituri interius premunt omne secretum. Neutrum faciendum est. Utrumque enim vitium est, et omnibus credere et nulli. Sed alterum honestius dixerim vitium, alterum tutius;

So you may blame both kinds: those who are forever restless, and those who are forever at rest. For that delight in commotion is not industry, but the racing about of an agitated mind; and this is not repose, which judges every motion a vexation, but slackness and languor.

sic utrosque reprehendas, et eos qui semper inquieti sunt, et eos qui semper quiescunt. Nam illa tumultu gaudens non est industria, sed exagitatae mentis concursatio. Et haec non est quies, quae motum omnem molestiam iudicat, sed dissolutio et languor.

And so this, which I read in Pomponius, will be committed to memory: "Some men have fled so far into their hiding-places that they think everything in the light is in turmoil." These things must be blended together: the man at rest must act, and the man in action must rest. Take counsel with nature: she will tell you that she made both day and night. Farewell.

Itaque hoc, quod apud Pomponium legi, animo mandabitur: quidam adeo in latebras refugerunt, ut putent in turbido esse, quicquid in luce est. Inter se ista miscenda sunt, et quiescenti agendum et agenti quiescendum est. Cum rerum natura delibera; illa dicet tibi et diem fecisse se et noctem. Vale.

Persevere as you have begun, and hurry as much as you can, that you may the longer enjoy a mind set right and composed. You enjoy it, indeed, even while you set it right, even while you compose it; yet that is another pleasure, the one taken from the contemplation of a mind pure of every stain and shining.

Persevera ut coepisti et quantum potes propera, quo diutius frui emendato animo et conposito possis. Frueris quidem etiam dum emendas, etiam dum conponis; alia tamen illa voluptas est, quae percipitur ex contemplatione mentis ab omni labe purae et splendidae.

You surely hold in memory how great a joy you felt when, the boy’s purple-bordered gown laid aside, you took up the man’s toga and were escorted down into the forum; look for a greater one when you have laid aside the boy’s mind and philosophy has enrolled you among men. For up to now it is not boyhood that remains, but — what is graver — boyishness. And this is the worse, that we have the authority of old men and the faults of boys, and not of boys only but of infants: the one dread trifles, the other things that are not real; we dread both.

Tenes utique memoria, quantum senseris gaudium, cum praetexta posita sumpsisti virilem togam et in forum deductus es; maius expecta, cum puerilem animum deposueris et te in viros philosophia transscripserit. Adhuc enim non pueritia sed, quod est gravius, puerilitas remanet. Et hoc quidem peior est, quod auctoritatem habemus senum, vitia puerorum, nec puerorum tantum sed infantum. Illi levia, hi falsa formidant, nos utraque.

Only make progress, and you will understand that some things are the less to be feared precisely because they bring much fear. No evil is great that is the last. Death comes to you; it would be to be feared if it could stay with you; but it must either not arrive or pass on.

Profice modo; intelleges quaedam ideo minus timenda, quia multum metus adferunt. Nullum malum est magnum, quod extremum est. Mors ad te venit; timenda erat, si tecum esse posset; sed necesse est aut non perveniat aut transeat.

"It is hard," you say, "to bring the mind to a contempt of life." Do you not see from what trivial causes it is held cheap? One man has hanged himself at his mistress’s door; another has flung himself from the roof, not to hear his raging master any longer; another, to keep from being dragged back from flight, has driven the steel into his vitals. Do you not think that virtue will accomplish what excess of dread accomplishes? No untroubled life can fall to the man who thinks too much of prolonging it, who counts many consulships among great goods.

Difficile est, inquis, animum perducere ad contemptionem animae. Non vides, quam ex frivolis causis contemnatur? Alius ante amicae fores laqueo pependit, alius se praecipitavit e tecto, ne dominum stomachantem diutius audiret, alius ne reduceretur e fuga, ferrum adegit in viscera. Non putas virtutem hoc effecturam, quod efficit nimia formido? Nulli potest secura vita contingere, qui de producenda nimis cogitat, qui inter magna bona multos consules numerat.

Rehearse this daily, that you may be able to leave life with an even mind — that life which many clutch and hold the way men swept along by a torrent grip thorns and jagged rocks. Most waver wretchedly between the fear of death and the torments of life, and neither wish to live nor know how to die.

Hoc cotidie meditare, ut possis aequo animo vitam relinquere, quam multi sic conplectuntur et tenent, quomodo qui aqua torrente rapiuntur spinas et aspera. Plerique inter mortis metum et vitae tormenta miseri fluctuantur et vivere nolunt, mori nesciunt.

Make your life pleasant, then, by laying aside all anxiety about it. No good profits its possessor unless the mind is prepared for its loss; and of nothing is the loss easier than of what cannot be missed once lost. Therefore against these things, which can befall even the most powerful, hearten yourself and grow hard.

Fac itaque tibi iucundam vitam omnem pro illa sollicitudinem deponendo. Nullum bonum adiuvat habentem, nisi ad cuius amissionem praeparatus est animus; nullius autem rei facilior amissio est, quam quae desiderari amissa non potest. Ergo adversus haec, quae incidere possunt etiam potentissimis, adhortare te et indura.

Over the head of Pompey a boy-king and a eunuch passed sentence; over Crassus a cruel and insolent Parthian; Gaius Caesar ordered Lepidus to offer his neck to the tribune Dexter, and himself offered his own to Chaerea. Fortune has raised no one so high that she did not threaten him with as much as she had granted. Do not trust this calm: in a moment the sea is overturned. On the same day on which the ships have played, they are swallowed up.

De Pompei capite pupillus et spado tulere sententiam, de Crasso crudelis et insolens Parthus; Gaius Caesar iussit Lepidum Dextro tribuno praebere cervicem, ipse Chaereae praestitit. Neminem eo fortuna provexit, ut non tantum illi minaretur, quantum permiserat. Noli huic tranquillitati confidere; momento mare evertitur. Eodem die ubi luserunt navigia, sorbentur.

Consider that both a bandit and an enemy can set a sword to your throat: even though a greater power be absent, there is no slave who does not hold over you the decision of life and death. So I say: whoever has despised his own life is master of yours. Recall the examples of those who perished by plots within the household, either by open force or by guile; you will understand that no fewer have fallen by the anger of slaves than of kings. What does it matter to you, then, how powerful he is whom you fear, when that for which you fear is something anyone can do?

Cogita posse et latronem et hostem admovere iugulo tuo gladium: Ut potestas maior absit, nemo non servus habet in te vitae necisque arbitrium. Ita dico: quisquis vitam suam contempsit, tuae dominus est. Recognosce exempla eorum, qui domesticis insidiis perierunt, aut aperta vi aut dolo; intelleges non pauciores servorum ira cecidisse quam regum. Quid ad te itaque, quam potens sit quem times, cum id, propter quod times, nemo non possit?

But if by chance you fall into the hands of enemies, the victor will order you to be led away — to the very place, that is, where you are already being led. Why do you deceive yourself and only now understand what you have long been undergoing? So I say: from the moment you were born, you are being led toward death. These and the like must be turned over in the mind, if we wish to await calmly that last hour, the fear of which makes all the others unquiet.

At si forte in manus hostium incideris, victor te duci iubebit; eo nempe, quo duceris. Quid te ipse decipis et hoc nunc primum, quod olim patiebaris, intellegis? Ita dico: ex quo natus es, duceris. Haec et eiusmodi versanda in animo sunt, si volumus ultimam illam horam placidi expectare, cuius metus omnes alias inquietas facit.

But, to put an end to the letter, take what has pleased me today. This too is plucked from another’s gardens: “Great riches are poverty composed by the law of nature.” And that law of nature — do you know what bounds it sets us? Not to hunger, not to thirst, not to be cold. To drive off hunger and thirst, there is no need to dance attendance at proud thresholds, nor to endure a heavy frown and even an insulting kindness; there is no need to try the seas or to follow the camp. What nature demands is to hand, and ready at our disposal.

Sed ut finem epistulae inponam, accipe, quod mihi hodierno die placuit. Et hoc quoque ex alienis hortulis sumptum est. Magnae divitiae sunt lege naturae composita paupertas. Lex autem illa naturae scis quos nobis terminos statuat? Non esurire, non sitire, non algere. Ut famem sitimque depellas, non est necesse superbis adsidere liminibus nec supercilium grave et contumeliosam etiam humanitatem pati, non est necesse maria temptare nec sequi castra; parabile est, quod natura desiderat, et adpositum.

It is for the superfluous that men sweat. These are the things that wear out the toga, that force us to grow old under a tent, that dash us upon foreign shores. What is enough is at hand. He who is on good terms with poverty is rich. Farewell. LETTER 5

Ad supervacua sudatur. Illa sunt, quae togam conterunt, quae nos senescere sub tentorio cogunt, quae in aliena litora inpingunt. Ad manum est, quod sat est. Cui cum paupertate bene convenit, dives est. Vale.

That you study stubbornly, and, all else laid aside, pursue this one thing — to make yourself better each day — I both approve and rejoice at, and I not only urge you to persevere but beg you to. But this I warn you of: do not, in the manner of those who long not to make progress but to be noticed, do anything that may be conspicuous in your dress or your way of life.

Quod pertinaciter studes et omnibus omissis hoc unum agis, ut te meliorem cotidie facias, et probo et gaudeo, nec tantum hortor, ut perseveres, sed etiam rogo. Illud autem te admoneo, ne eorum more, qui non proficere sed conspici cupiunt, facias aliqua, quae in habitu tuo aut genere vitae notabilia sint.

A rough turnout, an unshorn head, a more-than-careless beard, a declared hatred of silver, a bed laid on the ground, and whatever else ambition pursues by its perverse road — avoid it. The very name of philosophy, even if handled modestly, is invidious enough; what if we should begin to set ourselves apart from the common usage of men? Within, let all be unlike; our outward face should match the crowd’s.

Asperum cultum et intonsum caput et neglegentiorem barbam et indictum argento odium et cubile humi positum, et quicquid aliud ambitio nempe perversa via sequitur, evita. Satis ipsum nomen philosophiae, etiam si modeste tractetur, invidiosum est; quid si nos hominum consuetudini coeperimus excerpere? Intus omnia dissimilia sint, frons populo nostra conveniat.

Let the toga not glitter — but not be filthy either. Let us not own silver inlaid with chasings of solid gold, but let us not think the lack of gold and silver a proof of frugality. Let us aim to follow a better life than the crowd’s, not a contrary one; otherwise we put to flight and turn away the very men we wish to reform. We bring it about, too, that they will copy nothing of ours, for fear that they must copy all of it.

Non splendeat toga, ne sordeat quidem. Non habeamus argentum, in quod solidi auri caelatura descenderit, sed non putemus frugalitatis indicium auro argentoque caruisse. Id agamus, ut meliorem vitam sequamur quam vulgus, non ut contrariam; alioquin quos emendari volumus, fugamus a nobis et avertimus. Illud quoque efficimus, ut nihil imitari velint nostri, dum timent, ne imitanda sint omnia.

This is the first thing philosophy promises: fellow-feeling, humanity, and community. From that profession unlikeness will cut us off. Let us see that the very things by which we mean to win admiration are not ridiculous and odious. Surely our aim is to live in accordance with nature; but this is against nature — to torment one’s own body, to hate easy cleanliness, to court squalor, and to use foods not merely cheap but foul and revolting.

Hoc primum philosophia promittit, sensum communem, humanitatem et congregationem. A qua professione dissimilitudo nos separabit. Videamus, ne ista, per quae admirationem parare volumus, ridicula et odiosa sint. Nempe propositum nostrum est secundum naturam vivere; hoc contra naturam est, torquere corpus suum et faciles odisse munditias et squalorem adpetere et cibis non tantum vilibus uti sed taetris et horridis.

Just as to crave dainty things is luxury, so to shun the ordinary and easily got is madness. Philosophy demands frugality, not punishment; and frugality may be had without being unkempt. This is the measure that pleases me: let life be tempered between good morals and public ones; let all look up to our life, but let them recognize it.

Quemadmodum desiderare delicatas res luxuriae est, ita usitatas et non magno parabiles fugere dementiae. Frugalitatem exigit philosophia, non poenam, potest autem esse non incompta frugalitas. Hic mihi modus placet: temperetur vita inter bonos mores et publicos; suspiciant omnes vitam nostram, sed agnoscant.

What then? Shall we do the same as the rest? Will there be no difference between us and them? A very great one. Let the man who looks closer know that we are unlike the crowd. Let the man who enters our house admire us rather than our furniture. He is great who uses earthenware as if it were silver; and he is no less great who uses silver as if it were earthenware. It is the mark of a weak mind to be unable to bear wealth.

Quid ergo? Eadem faciemus, quae ceteri? Nihil inter nos et illos intererit? Plurimum. Dissimiles esse nos vulgo sciat, qui inspexerit propius. Qui domum intraverit, nos potius miretur quam supellectilem nostram. Magnus ille est, qui fictilibus sic utitur quemadmodum argento. Nec ille minor est, qui sic argento utitur quemadmodum fictilibus. Infirmi animi est pati non posse divitias.

But to share with you this day’s little profit too: I found in our Hecato that the ending of desires serves also as a remedy for fear. "You will cease to fear," he says, "if you cease to hope." You will say: "How do things so unlike go side by side?" It is so, my Lucilius: though they seem at odds, they are joined. Just as one and the same chain binds the prisoner and the guard, so these, unlike as they are, move forward together: fear follows hope.

Sed ut huius quoque diei lucellum tecum communicem, apud Hecatonem nostrum inveni cupiditatium finem etiam ad timoris remedia proficere. Desines, inquit, timere, si sperare desieris. Dices: Quomodo ista tam diversa pariter eunt? Ita est, mi Lucili: cum videantur dissidere, coniuncta sunt. Quemadmodum eadem catena et custodiam et militem copulat, sic ista, quae tam dissimilia sunt, pariter incedunt; spem metus sequitur.

Nor do I wonder that they go so; both belong to a mind in suspense, both to one made anxious by the expectation of the future. And the greatest cause of both is that we do not fit ourselves to the present, but send our thoughts on ahead into the far-off. And so foresight, the greatest good of the human condition, is turned to evil.

Nec miror ista sic ire; utrumque pendentis animi est, utrumque futuri exspectatione solliciti. Maxima autem utriusque causa est, quod non ad praesentia aptamur, sed cogitationes in longinqua praemittimus. Itaque providentia, maximum bonum condicionis humanae, in malum versa est.

Wild beasts flee the dangers they see; once they have escaped, they are free of care; but we are tormented by both what is to come and what is past. Many of our goods do us harm; for memory brings back the torment of fear, and foresight anticipates it. No one is wretched by the present alone. Farewell.

Ferae pericula, quae vident, fugiunt; cum effugere, securae sunt; nos et venturo torquemur et praeterito. Multa bona nostra nobis nocent, timoris enim tormentum memoria reducit, providentia anticipat. Nemo tantum praesentibus miser est. Vale.

I understand, Lucilius, that I am not merely being corrected but transformed. Nor do I now promise or even hope that nothing is left in me that ought to be changed. Why should I not have many things that need to be gathered up, thinned down, lifted higher? And this very fact is proof of a mind carried over into something better: that it sees its own faults, which until now it did not know. To some sick men congratulations are offered when they themselves have felt that they are sick.

Intellego, Lucili, non emendari me tantum sed transfigurari. Nec hoc promitto iam aut spero, nihil in me superesse, quod mutandum sit. Quidni multa habeam, quae debeant colligi, quae extenuari, quae attolli? Et hoc ipsum argumentum est in melius translati animi, quod vitia sua, quae adhuc ignorabat, videt. Quibusdam aegris gratulatio fit, cum ipsi aegros se esse senserunt.

And so I could wish to share with you so sudden a change in myself; then I would begin to have surer confidence in our friendship — that true friendship which no hope, no fear, no concern for its own advantage tears apart; that friendship with which men die, for which they die.

Cuperem itaque tecum communicare tam subitam mutationem mei; tunc amicitiae nostrae certiorem fiduciam habere coepissem, illius verae, quam non spes, non timor, non utilitatis suae cura divellit, illius, cum qua homines moriuntur, pro qua moriuntur.

I will show you many who have lacked not a friend but friendship. This cannot happen when an equal will draws souls together into a partnership of desiring what is honorable. Why can it not happen? Because they know they hold all things in common, and adversity most of all. You cannot conceive in your mind how much weight I see each single day bring to me.

Multos tibi dabo, qui non amico, sed amicitia caruerunt. Hoc non potest accidere, cum animos in societatem honesta cupiendi par voluntas trahit. Quidni non possit? Sciunt enim ipsos omnia habere communia, et quidem magis adversa. Concipere animo non potes, quantum momenti adferre mihi singulos dies videam.

"Send to us too," you say, "those things you have found so effective." Indeed I long to pour everything into you, and I take some joy in learning in order to teach. Nor will anything delight me, however excellent and salutary, if I am to know it for myself alone. If wisdom were granted on this condition, that I keep it shut up and not utter it, I would refuse it. No good is a joy to possess without a companion.

Mitte, inquis, et nobis ista, quae tam efficacia expertus es. Ego vero omnia in te cupio transfundere, et in hoc aliquid gaudeo discere, ut doceam. Nec me ulla res delectabit, licet sit eximia et salutaris, quam mihi uni sciturus sum. Si cum hac exceptione detur sapientia, ut illam inclusam teneam nec enuntiem, reiciam. Nullius boni sine socio iucunda possessio est.

And so I will send you the very books, and so that you need not spend much effort hunting here and there for what will profit you, I will set marks on them, so that you may come at once to the things I approve and admire. Yet the living voice and the shared life will profit you more than the written word. You must come to the thing as it stands present — first, because men trust their eyes more than their ears; second, because the road is long through precepts, short and effective through examples.

Mittam itaque ipsos tibi libros et ne multum operae inpendas, dum passim profutura sectaris, inponam notas, ut ad ipsa protinus, quae probo et miror, accedas. Plus tamen tibi et viva vox et convictus quam oratio proderit. In rem praesentem venias oportet, primum, quia homines amplius oculis quam auribus credunt; deinde, quia longum iter est per praecepta, breve et efficax per exempla.

Cleanthes would not have reproduced Zeno if he had only heard him; he shared his life, saw into his secrets, watched him to see whether he lived by his own rule. Plato and Aristotle and the whole crowd of sages destined to go their separate ways drew more from the character of Socrates than from his words; it was not Epicurus’s school but living under his roof that made Metrodorus and Hermarchus and Polyaenus great men. Nor do I summon you to this only that you may make progress, but that you may do good; for we shall confer very much, each upon the other.

Zenonem Cleanthes non expressisset, si tantummodo audisset; vitae eius interfuit, secreta perspexit, observavit illum, an ex formula sua viveret. Platon et Aristoteles et omnis in diversum itura sapientium turba plus ex moribus quam ex verbis Socratis traxit; Metrodorum et Hermarchum et Polyaenum magnos viros non schola Epicuri sed contubernium fecit. Nec in hoc te accerso tantum, ut proficias, sed ut prosis; plurimum enim alter alteri conferemus.

Meanwhile, since I owe you a small daily wage, I will tell you what delighted me today in Hecato. "Do you ask," he says, "what progress I have made? I have begun to be a friend to myself." He has made much progress; he will never be alone. Know that such a man is a friend to all. Farewell.

Interim quoniam diurnam tibi mercedulam debeo, quid me hodie apud Hecatonem delectaverit dicam. Quaeris, inquit, quid profecerim? Amicus esse mihi coepi. Multum profecit; numquam erit solus. Scito hunc amicum omnibus esse. Vale.

You ask what you should reckon must be avoided above all? The crowd. You cannot yet be entrusted to it safely. I, at least, will confess my own weakness: I never bring home the character I took out. Something of what I had composed is disturbed; something of what I had driven off returns. What happens to the sick, whom a long weakness has so afflicted that they cannot be brought out anywhere without harm, happens to us, whose minds are recovering from a long illness.

Quid tibi vitandum praecipue existimes, quaeris? Turbam. Nondum illi tuto committeris. Ego certe confitebor inbecillitatem meam: numquam mores, quos extuli, refero. Aliquid ex eo, quod conposui, turbatur; aliquid ex iis, quae fugavi, redit. Quod aegris evenit, quos longa inbecillitas usque eo adfecit, ut nusquam sine offensa proferantur, hoc accidit nobis, quorum animi ex longo morbo reficiuntur.

Mixing with the many is our enemy: there is no one who does not either commend some fault to us, or stamp it upon us, or smear it on us without our knowing. And the greater the populace we mingle with, the more danger there is. But nothing is so ruinous to good character as to lounge away time at some show. For then, through pleasure, the vices steal in the more easily.

Inimica est multorum conversatio; nemo non aliquod nobis vitium aut commendat aut inprimit aut nescientibus adlinit. Utique quo maior est populus, cui miscemur, hoc periculi plus est. Nihil vero tam damnosum bonis moribus quam in aliquo spectaculo desidere. Tunc enim per voluptatem facilius vitia subrepunt.

What do you suppose I mean? I come back more greedy, more grasping for honors, more given to luxury — indeed more cruel and inhuman, because I have been among men. By chance I dropped in on a midday show, expecting sport and wit and some relaxation, where men’s eyes might rest from human blood. The opposite is the case. Whatever fighting there was before was mercy; now, the trifling laid aside, it is sheer murder. They have nothing to cover them; exposed with their whole bodies to the blow, they never strike in vain.

Quid me existimas dicere? Avarior redeo, ambitiosior, luxuriosior, immo vero crudelior et inhumanior, quia inter homines fui. Casu in meridianum spectaculum incidi lusus expectans et sales et aliquid laxamenti, quo hominum oculi ab humano cruore adquiescunt; contra est. Quicquid ante pugnatum est, misericordia fuit. Nunc omissis nugis mera homicidia sunt. Nihil habent quo tegantur, ad ictum totis corporibus expositi numquam frustra manum mittunt.

Most prefer this to the regular pairs and the matches the crowd calls for. Why should they not prefer it? No helmet, no shield turns back the steel. What use are defenses? What use the skills? All these only delay death. In the morning men are thrown to lions and bears, at midday to their own spectators. The killers, the crowd orders, are to be thrown to those who will kill them, and the victor they keep back for another slaughter. The way out for the fighters is death; the business is done with sword and fire. This goes on while the arena stands empty.

Hoc plerique ordinariis paribus et postulaticiis praeferunt. Quidni praeferant? Non galea, non scuto repellitur ferrum. Quo munimenta? Quo artes? Omnia ista mortis morae sunt. Mane leonibus et ursis homines, meridie spectatoribus suis obiciuntur. Interfectores interfecturis iubent obici et victorem in aliam detinent caedem. Exitus pugnantium mors est; ferro et igne res geritur. Haec fiunt, dum vacat harena.

"But the man committed a robbery, he killed somebody." What of it? Because he killed, he deserved to suffer this; but you, poor wretch, what have you done to deserve to watch it? "Kill, flog, burn! Why does he run onto the sword so timidly? Why does he strike with so little daring? Why does he die with so little willingness? Let him be driven onto the wounds by lashes, let them take each other’s blows on bared and offered breasts." The show is paused: "Meanwhile let men’s throats be cut, so that nothing be doing." Come now — do you not even understand this, that bad examples recoil upon those who set them? Give thanks to the immortal gods that you are teaching cruelty to one who cannot learn it.

Sed latrocinium fecit aliquis, occidit hominem. Quid ergo? Quia occidit ille, meruit ut hoc pateretur; tu quid meruisti miser, ut hoc spectes? Occide, verbera, ure! Quare tam timide incurrit in ferrum? Quare parum audacter occidit? Quare parum libenter moritur? Plagis agatur in vulnera, mutuos ictus nudis et obviis pectoribus excipiant. Intermissum est spectaculum: interim iugulentur homines, ne nihil agatur. Age, ne hoc quidem intellegitis, mala exempla in eos redundare, qui faciunt? Agite dis inmortalibus gratias, quod eum docetis esse crudelem, qui non potest discere.

A mind still tender and with too weak a hold on the right must be withdrawn from the people; it passes easily to the side of the many. A multitude unlike them could have shaken his own character out of Socrates, out of Cato, out of Laelius; so much the more can none of us, who at this very moment are shaping our nature, bear the onset of vices that come with so great a retinue.

Subducendus populo est tener animus et parum tenax recti; facile transitur ad plures. Socrati et Catoni et Laelio excutere morem suum dissimilis multitudo potuisset; adeo nemo nostrum, qui cum maxime concinnamus ingenium, ferre impetum vitiorum tam magno comitatu venientium potest.

A single example of luxury or greed does much harm. A dainty house-companion little by little unnerves and softens you; a rich neighbor inflames desire; a spiteful comrade rubs off his own rust on however bright and guileless a man. What, then, do you think happens to a character against which the public at large has launched its assault? You must either imitate them or hate them.

Unum exemplum luxuriae aut avaritiae multum mali facit; convictor delicatus paulatim enervat et emollit, vicinus dives cupiditatem inritat, malignus comes quamvis candido et simplici rubiginem suam adfricuit. Quid tu accidere his moribus credis, in quos publice factus est impetus? Necesse est aut imiteris aut oderis.

But both are to be shunned: do not become like the bad because they are many, nor an enemy to the many because they are unlike you. Withdraw into yourself, as far as you can. Keep company with those who will make you better. Admit those whom you can make better. These things happen by exchange, and men, while they teach, learn.

Utrumque autem devitandum est; neve similis malis fias, quia multi sunt, neve inimicus multis, quia dissimiles sunt. Recede in te ipsum, quantum potes. Cum his versare, qui te meliorem facturi sunt. Illos admitte, quos tu potes facere meliores. Mutuo ista fiunt, et homines, dum docent, discunt.

There is no reason for the glory of publishing your talent to draw you out into the open, so that you should wish to recite to those people or to dispute before them — which I would want you to do, if you had wares fit for that populace; but there is no one who could understand you. Perhaps someone, one or another, will turn up, and even he will have to be shaped by you and trained to the understanding of you. "For whom, then, did I learn these things?" You need not fear that you have wasted your effort: you learned for yourself.

Non est quod te gloria publicandi ingenii producat in medium, ut recitare istis velis aut disputare; quod facere te vellem, si haberes isti populo idoneam mercem; nemo est, qui intellegere te possit. Aliquis fortasse, unus aut alter incidet, et hic ipse formandus tibi erit instituendusque ad intellectum tui. Cui ergo ista didici? Non est quod timeas, ne operam perdideris; tibi didicisti.

But that I may not have learned today for myself alone, I will share with you three sayings that came my way, finely put, on about the same thought; of these, this letter shall pay one as its due — take the other two on account. Democritus says: "One man is for me as good as a whole people, and a people as good as one man."

Sed ne soli mihi hodie didicerim, communicabo tecum, quae occurrerunt mihi egregie dicta circa eundem fere sensum tria; ex quibus unum haec epistula in debitum solvet, duo in antecessum accipe. Democritus ait: Unus mihi pro populo est, et populus pro uno.

Well said too by that man — whoever he was, for the author is disputed — when he was asked to what end he aimed at such painstaking care in an art that would reach the very fewest: "A few are enough for me," he said, "one is enough, none is enough." Excellently was this third put by Epicurus, writing to one of the partners in his studies: "This I write not for the many, but for you; for we are a great enough theater, each for the other."

Bene et ille, quisquis fuit, ambigitur enim de auctore, cum quaereretur ab illo, quo tanta diligentia artis spectaret ad paucissimos perventurae, Satis sunt, inquit, mihi pauci, satis est unus, satis est nullus. Egregie hoc tertium Epicurus, cum uni ex consortibus studiorum suorum scriberet: Haec, inquit, ego non multis, sed tibi; satis enim magnum alter alteri theatrum sumus.

These things, my Lucilius, must be laid away in the mind, so that you may despise the pleasure that comes from the assent of the many. Many praise you. Have you any reason to be pleased with yourself, if you are the kind of man whom many can understand? Let your goods look inward. Farewell.

Ista, mi Lucili, condenda in animum sunt, ut contemnas voluptatem ex plurium adsensione venientem. Multi te laudant. Ecquid habes, cur placeas tibi, si is es, quem intellegant multi? Introrsus bona tua spectent. Vale.

"You," you say, "bid me avoid the crowd, withdraw, and be content with a clear conscience? Where are those precepts of your school, which command a man to die in action?" This thing I seem meanwhile to be urging on you — it is for this that I have hidden myself away and shut the doors, that I might be able to do good to more. No day of mine passes in idleness. I claim part of the nights for study. I do not give way to sleep but succumb to it, and I hold to their work my eyes, wearied and falling with watching.

Tu me, inquis, vitare turbam iubes, secedere et conscientia esse contentum? Ubi illa praecepta vestra, quae imperant in actu mori? Quod ego tibi videor interim suadere, in hoc me recondidi et fores clusi, ut prodesse pluribus possem. Nullus mihi per otium dies exit. Partem noctium studiis vindico. Non vaco somno sed succumbo, et oculos vigilia fatigatos cadentesque in opere detineo.

I have withdrawn not only from men but from affairs, and first of all from my own affairs: I am doing the business of those who come after. For them I write down some things that may be of use. Salutary admonitions, like the compoundings of useful medicines, I commit to writing, having found them effective on my own sores, which, even if they are not wholly healed, have ceased to spread.

Secessi non tantum ab hominibus, sed a rebus, et inprimis a meis rebus; posterorum negotium ago; illis aliqua, quae possint prodesse, conscribo. Salutares admonitiones, velut medicamentorum utilium compositiones, litteris mando, esse illas efficaces in meis ulceribus expertus, quae etiam si persanata non sunt, serpere desierunt.

The straight road, which I came to know late and weary with wandering, I point out to others. I cry aloud: "Avoid whatever pleases the crowd, whatever chance bestows. At every fortuitous good, stand still, suspicious and afraid; both beast and fish are taken in by some alluring hope. Do you think these are the gifts of fortune? They are ambushes. Whoever of you wants to lead a safe life, let him shun as much as he can these limed benefits, in which we, most wretched, are deceived in this too: we think we hold them, and it is we who are held fast."

Rectum iter, quod sero cognovi et lassus errando, aliis monstro. Clamo: Vitate, quaecumque vulgo placent, quae casus adtribuit. Ad omne fortuitum bonum suspiciosi pavidique subsistite; et fera et piscis spe aliqua oblectante decipitur. Munera ista fortunae putatis? Insidiae sunt. Quisquis vestrum tutam agere vitam volet, quantum plurimum potest, ista viscata beneficia devitet, in quibus hoc quoque miserrimi fallimur; habere nos putamus, haeremus.

That course leads down to the precipice. The end of this towering life is to fall. And then one is not even allowed to resist, once prosperity has begun to drive a man sideways — or at least to wreck him while he is upright, or all at once. Fortune does not overturn: she tips headlong and dashes to pieces.

In praecipitia cursus iste deducit. Huius eminentis vitae exitus cadere est. Deinde ne resistere quidem licet, eum coepit transversos agere felicitas, aut saltim rectis aut semel ruere; non evertit fortuna, sed cernulat et allidit.

Hold, then, to this sound and wholesome shape of life: indulge the body only so far as is enough for good health. It must be handled more harshly, lest it obey the mind ill. Let food allay hunger, drink quench thirst, clothing keep off cold, the house be a defense against what threatens the body. Whether turf has raised it, or stone of varied color from a foreign nation, makes no difference: know that a man is as well sheltered by thatch as by gold. Despise everything that superfluous toil sets up as ornament and adornment. Reflect that nothing is to be wondered at except the mind, to which, being itself great, nothing is great.

Hanc ergo sanam ac salubrem formam vitae tenete, ut corpori tantum indulgeatis, quantum bonae valitudini satis est. Durius tractandum est, ne animo male pareat. Cibus famem sedet, potio sitim extinguat, vestis arceat frigus, domus munimentum sit adversus infesta corporis. Hanc utrum caespes erexerit an varius lapis gentis alienae, nihil interest; scitote tam bene hominem culmo quam auro tegi. Contemnite omnia, quae supervacuus labor velut ornamentum ac decus ponit. Cogitate nihil praeter animum esse mirabile, cui magno nihil magnum est.

If I speak these things with myself, if with those who come after, do I not seem to you to do more good than when I would go down to court as an advocate to stand surety, or press my ring upon the tablets of a will, or in the senate lend voice and hand to a candidate? Believe me: those who seem to do nothing do greater things; they handle things human and divine at once.

Si haec mecum, si haec cum posteris loquor, non videor tibi plus prodesse, quam cum ad vadimonium advocatus descenderem, aut tabulis testamenti anulum inprimerem, aut in senatu candidato vocem et manum commodarem? Mihi crede, qui nihil agere videntur, maiora agunt; humana divinaque simul tractant.

But now an end must be made, and something — as I have set up the practice — paid out for this letter. It will not be done from my own funds: we are still leafing through Epicurus, whose saying I read today: "You must be a slave to philosophy, that true freedom may fall to you." He who has submitted and handed himself over to her is not put off from day to day; he is freed at once. For this very thing, to be a slave to philosophy, is freedom.

Sed iam finis faciendus est et aliquid, ut institui, pro hac epistula dependendum. Id non de meo fiet; adhuc Epicurum complicamus, cuius hanc vocem hodierno die legi: Philosophiae servias oportet, ut tibi contingat vera libertas. Non differtur in diem, qui se illi subiecit et tradidit; statim circumagitur. Hoc enim ipsum philosophiae servire libertas est.

It may be that you ask me why I bring back so many fine sayings from Epicurus rather than from our own school. But what reason is there for you to think these words are Epicurus’s and not common property? How many poets say things that have been said, or ought to be said, by philosophers! I will not touch the writers of tragedy nor our plays in the toga — for these too have something of seriousness and stand midway between comedies and tragedies. How many most eloquent verses lie buried among the mimes! How many sayings of Publilius ought to be spoken not by players in slippers but in the tragic buskin!

Potest fieri, ut me interroges, quare ab Epicuro tam multa bene dicta referam potius quam nostrorum. Quid est tamen, quare tu istas Epicuri voces putes esse, non publicas? Quam multi poetae dicunt, quae philosophis aut dicta sunt aut dicenda! Non adtingam tragicos nec togatas nostras. Habent enim hae quoque aliquid severitatis et sunt inter comoedias ac tragoedias mediae. Quantum disertissimorum versuum inter mimos iacet! Quam multa Publilii non excalceatis, sed coturnatis dicenda sunt!

"All is another’s, whatever comes by wishing."

Alienum est omne, quicquid optando evenit.

"What fortune has made yours is not your own. A good that could be given can be taken away."

Non est tuum, fortuna quod fecit tuum. Dari bonum quod potuit, auferri potest.

You wish to know whether Epicurus, in a certain letter, rightly rebukes those who say that the wise man is content with himself and for that reason has no need of a friend. This is the charge Epicurus brings against Stilbo and those to whom the highest good seemed to be a mind that suffers nothing.

An merito reprehendat in quadam epistula Epicurus eos, qui dicunt sapientem se ipso esse contentum et propter hoc amico non indigere, desideras scire. Hoc obicitur Stilboni ab Epicuro et iis quibus summum bonum visum est animus inpatiens.

We must fall into ambiguity if we want to render apatheia hastily in a single word and call it impatientia, "unsuffering." For the opposite of what we mean to signify may be understood: we mean the man who spurns all sense of evil, but it will be taken to mean the man who can bear no evil. See, then, whether it is not better to speak of an "invulnerable mind," or "a mind set beyond all suffering."

In ambiguitatem incidendum est, si exprimere ἀπάθειαν uno verbo cito voluerimus et inpatientiam dicere. Poterit enim contrarium ei, quod significare volumus, intellegi. Nos eum volumus dicere, qui respuat omnis mali sensum; accipietur is, qui nullum ferre possit malum. Vide ergo, num satius sit aut invulnerabilem animum dicere aut animum extra omnem patientiam positum.

This is the difference between us and them: our wise man conquers every trouble, but feels it; theirs does not even feel it. This we and they have in common: the wise man is content with himself. And yet he wishes also to have a friend, a neighbor, a companion — however much he suffices to himself.

Hoc inter nos et illos interest: noster sapiens vincit quidem incommodum omne, sed sentit; illorum ne sentit quidem. Illud nobis et illis commune est: sapientem se ipso esse contentum. Sed tamen et amicum habere vult et vicinum et contubernalem, quamvis sibi ipse sufficiat.

See how content with himself he is: at times he is content with a part of himself. If disease or an enemy has struck off his hand, if some accident has dashed out an eye, or both eyes, what remains of him will satisfy him, and he will be as glad with his body lessened and lopped as he was when it was whole. Yet, though he does not long for what is gone, he would rather it were not gone.

Vide quam sit se contentus; aliquando sui parte contentus est. Si illi manum aut morbus aut hostis exciderit, si quis oculum vel oculos casus excusserit, reliquiae illi suae satisfacient, et erit inminuto corpore et amputato tam laetus, quam integro fuit. Sed quae si desunt, non desiderat, non deesse mavult.

So the wise man is content with himself — not in that he wishes to be without a friend, but in that he can be. And this "can be" that I speak of is of this kind: he bears the loss with an even mind. Yet he will never be without a friend. He has it in his own power how quickly he repairs the loss. Just as Phidias, if he had lost a statue, would at once make another, so this craftsman in the making of friendships will put another in the place of the one lost.

Ita sapiens se contentus est, non ut velit esse sine amico, sed ut possit. Et hoc, quod dico possit, tale est: amissum aequo animo fert. Sine amico quidem numquam erit. In sua potestate habet, quam cito reparet. Quomodo si perdiderit Phidias statuam, protinus alteram faciet; sic hic faciendarum amicitiarum artifex substituet alium in locum amissi.

You ask how he will make a friend quickly. I will tell you, if you will settle that account with me, so that I may pay at once what I owe and, as far as this letter goes, we may be square. Hecato says: "I will show you a love-charm without drug, without herb, without any sorceress’s spell: if you wish to be loved, love." Now there is great pleasure not only in the enjoyment of an old and tried friendship but also in the beginning and forming of a new one.

Quaeris, quomodo amicum cito facturus sit; dicam, si illud mihi tecum converterit, ut statim tibi solvam, quod debeo, et quantum ad hanc epistulam, paria faciamus. Hecaton ait: Ego tibi monstrabo amatorium sine medicamenta, sine herba, sine ullius veneficae carmine: si vis amari, ama. Habet autem non tantum usus amicitiae veteris et certae magnam voluptatem, sed etiam initium et comparatio novae.

What lies between the farmer reaping and the farmer sowing lies between the man who has secured a friend and the man who is securing one. The philosopher Attalus used to say that it is more pleasant to make a friend than to have one, just as it is more pleasant for the artist to paint than to have painted. That anxiety busied in its own work has a vast delight in the very being busied. He is not delighted in the same way who has lifted his hand from the finished work. Now he enjoys the fruit of his art; he was enjoying the art itself while he painted. The childhood of one’s children is more fruitful, but their infancy is sweeter.

Quod interest inter metentem agricolam et serentem, hoc inter eum, qui amicum paravit et qui parat. Attalus philosophus dicere solebat iucundius esse amicum facere quam habere, quomodo artifici iucundius pingere est quam pinxisse. Illa in opere suo occupata sollicitudo ingens oblectamentum habet in ipsa occupatione. Non aeque delectatur, qui ab opere perfecto removit manum. Iam fructu artis suae fruitur; ipsa fruebatur arte, cum pingeret. Fructuosior est adulescentia liberorum, sed infantia dulcior.

Now let us return to the matter in hand. The wise man, even if he is content with himself, still wishes to have a friend — if nothing else, to keep friendship in exercise, lest so great a virtue lie idle; not for the reason Epicurus gave in this very letter, that he may have someone to sit by him when he is sick, to come to his aid when he is thrown into chains or in want, but that he may have someone whom he himself may sit by when sick, whom he himself may set free when beset by a hostile guard. He who looks to himself, and comes to friendship for that, thinks ill. As he began, so he will end: he secured a friend to bring help against chains; at the first clink of the chain, he will be gone.

Nunc ad propositum revertamur. Sapiens, etiam si contentus est se, tamen habere amicum vult, si nihil aliud, ut exerceat amicitiam, ne tam magna virtus iaceat, non ad hoc, quod dicebat Epicurus in hac ipsa epistula, ut habeat, qui sibi aegro adsideat, succurrat in vincula coniecto vel inopi, sed ut habeat aliquem, cui ipse aegro adsideat, quem ipse circumventum hostili custodia liberet. Qui se spectat et propter hoc ad amicitiam venit, male cogitat. Quemadmodum coepit, sic desinet: paravit amicum adversum vincla laturum opem; cum primum crepuerit catena, discedet.

These are the friendships the people call seasonal. He who is taken up for the sake of usefulness will please only so long as he is useful. For this reason a crowd of friends sits around the prosperous; around the fallen is solitude, and friends flee from the very place where they are put to the test. For this reason there are so many monstrous examples — of some abandoning, of some betraying, out of fear. The beginnings and the ends must match. He who began to be a friend because it pays will also cease because it pays. Some price will be found to outweigh friendship, if anything in it pleases beyond friendship itself.

Hae sunt amicitiae, quas temporarias populus appellat; qui utilitatis causa adsumptus est, tamdiu placebit, quamdiu utilis fuerit. Hac re florentes amicorum turba circumsedet; circa eversos solitudo est, et inde amici fugiunt, ubi probantur. Hac re ista tot nefaria exempla sunt aliorum metu relinquentium, aliorum metu prodendum. Necesse est initia inter se et exitus congruant. Qui amicus esse coepit, quia expedit, et desinet, quia expedit. Placebit aliquod pretium contra amicitiam, si ullum in illa placet praeter ipsam.

To what end do I get a friend? To have one for whom I can die, whom I may follow into exile, against whose death I may set and spend myself. What you describe is a piece of trafficking, not a friendship — one that comes for advantage, that looks to what it will gain.

In quid amicum paro? Ut habeam pro quo mori possim, ut habeam quem in exilium sequar, cuius me morti opponam et inpendam. Ista, quam tu describis, negotiatio est, non amicitia, quae ad commodum accedit, quae quid consecutura sit spectat.

Without doubt the passion of lovers has something akin to friendship; you might call it a friendship gone mad. Does anyone, then, love for the sake of profit? for ambition, or glory? Love itself, by itself, careless of all other things, kindles minds into a desire for beauty, not without hope of an answering affection. What then? Does the baser passion arise from the more honorable cause?

Non dubie habet aliquid simile amicitiae affectus amantium; possis dicere illam esse insanam amicitiam. Numquid ergo quisquam amat lucri causa? Numquid ambitionis aut gloriae? Ipse per se amor omnium aliarum rerum neglegens animos in cupiditatem formae non sine spe mutuae caritatis accendit. Quid ergo? Ex honestiore causa coit turpis adfectus?

"We are not now arguing," you say, "about this, whether friendship is to be sought for its own sake." On the contrary, nothing more needs proving. For if it is to be sought for its own sake, the man who is content with himself can approach it. How, then, does he approach it? As one approaches a most beautiful thing — not caught by gain, nor terrified by the turns of fortune. He strips friendship of its majesty who makes it ready only for good times.

Non agitur, inquis, nunc de hoc, an amicitia propter se ipsam adpetenda sit. Immo vero nihil magis probandum est. Nam si propter se ipsam expetenda est, potest ad illam accedere qui se ipso contentus est. Quomodo ergo ad illam accedit? Quomodo ad rem pulcherrimam, non lucro captus nec varietate fortunae perterritus. Detrahit amicitiae maiestatem suam, qui illam parat ad bonos casus.

The wise man is content with himself. This, my Lucilius, most men interpret wrongly: they push the wise man off on every side and force him within his own skin. But we must distinguish what, and how far, that phrase promises. The wise man is content with himself for living happily, not for living. For the latter he has need of many things; for the former, only of a sound and upright mind that looks down on fortune.

Se contentus est sapiens. Hoc, mi Lucili, plerique perperam interpretantur; sapientem undique submovent et intra cutem suam cogunt. Distinguendum autem est, quid et quatenus vox ista promittat; se contentus est sapiens ad beate vivendum, non ad vivendum. Ad hoc enim multis illi rebus opus est, ad illud tantum animo sano et erecto et despiciente fortunam.

I want to point out to you Chrysippus’s distinction too. He says the wise man lacks nothing, and yet has need of many things; whereas the fool has need of nothing — for he knows how to use nothing — but wants for everything. The wise man has need of hands and eyes and many things necessary for daily use, yet he lacks nothing; for lacking belongs to necessity, and nothing is necessary to the wise man.

Volo tibi Chrysippi quoque distinctionem indicare. Ait sapientem nulla re egere, et tamen multis illi rebus opus esse. Contra stulto nulla re opus est, nulla enim re uti scit, sed omnibus eget. Sapienti et manibus et oculis et multis ad cotidianum usum necessariis opus est, eget nulla re. Egere enim necessitatis est, nihil necesse sapienti est.

Therefore, however content with himself, he has need of friends. He desires to have as many of them as possible — not that he may live happily, for he will live happily even without friends. The highest good does not seek its instruments from outside. It is cultivated at home; it is wholly from itself. It begins to be subject to fortune if it seeks any part of itself abroad.

Ergo quamvis se ipso contentus sit, amicis illi opus est. Hos cupit habere quam plurimos, non ut beate vivat; vivet enim etiam sine amicis beate. Summum bonum extrinsecus instrumenta non quaerit. Domi colitur, ex se totum est. Incipit fortunae esse subiectum, si quam partem sui foris quaerit.

Yet what will the wise man’s life be, if he is left without friends — thrown into custody, or stranded among some foreign nation, or held back on a long voyage, or cast out on a desert shore? It will be like Jupiter’s, when, the world dissolved and the gods confounded into one, with nature for a little while at rest, he reposes in himself, given over to his own thoughts. Something of this sort the wise man does: he withdraws into himself, he is with himself.

Qualis tamen futura est vita sapientis, si sine amicis relinquatur in custodiam coniectus, vel in aliqua gente aliena destitutus, vel in navigatione longa retentus, aut in desertum litus eiectus? Qualis est Iovis, cum resoluto mundo et dis in unum confusis paulisper cessante natura adquiescit sibi cogitationibus suis traditus. Tale quiddam sapiens facit; in se reconditur, secum est.

As long, indeed, as he is allowed to order his affairs by his own judgment, he is content with himself — and takes a wife; content with himself — and raises children; content with himself — and yet would not live, if he were to live with no human being at all. No advantage of his own draws him to friendship, but a natural prompting. For as there is an inborn sweetness to us in other things, so there is in friendship. As there is a hatred of solitude and a reaching after society, as nature joins man to man, so in this matter too there lies a goad that makes us desirous of friendships.

Quamdiu quidem illi licet suo arbitrio res suas ordinare, se contentus est et ducit uxorem; se contentus est et liberos tollit; se contentus est et tamen non viveret, si foret sine homine victurus. Ad amicitiam fert illum nulla utilitas sua, sed naturalis inritatio. Nam ut aliarum nobis rerum innata dulcedo est, sic amicitiae. Quomodo solitudinis odium est et adpetitio societatis, quomodo hominem homini natura conciliat, sic inest huic quoque rei stimulus, qui nos amicitiarum adpetentes faciat.

Nonetheless, though he is most loving of his friends, though he sets them beside himself and often before himself, he will bound every good within himself and will say what that famous Stilbo said — Stilbo, whom Epicurus’s letter attacks. For he, when his country had been captured, his children lost, his wife lost, came out from the public conflagration alone and yet happy; and when Demetrius — surnamed, from the destruction of cities, Poliorcetes, "the Besieger" — asked him whether he had lost anything, he said: "All my goods are with me."

Nihilominus cum sit amicorum amantissimus, cum illos sibi comparet, saepe praeferat, omne intra se bonum terminabit et dicet, quod Stilbon ille dixit, Stilbon quem Epicuri epistula insequitur; hic enim capta patria, amissis liberis, amissa uxore cum ex incendio publico solus et tamen beatus exiret, interroganti Demetrio, cui cognomen ab exitio urbium Poliorcetes fuit, numquid perdidisset, Omnia, inquit, bona mea mecum sunt.

Behold a brave and vigorous man! He conquered his enemy’s very victory. "I have lost nothing," he said; he forced the other to doubt whether he had won. "All that is mine is with me": this is the very thing — to count nothing good that can be snatched away. We marvel at certain animals that pass through the midst of fire without harm to their bodies; how much more marvelous is this man, who passed out through steel and ruins and fire, unhurt and unharmed! Do you see how much easier it is to conquer a whole nation than one man? This saying of his he shares with the Stoic. He too carries his goods untouched through burning cities — for he is content with himself, and by this limit he marks out his happiness.

Ecce vir fortis ac strenuus! Ipsam hostis sui victoriam vicit. Nihil, inquit, perdidi; dubitare illum coegit, an vicisset. Omnia mea mecum sunt; hoc ipsum est nihil bonum putare, quod eripi possit. Miramur animalia quaedam, quae per medios ignes sine noxa corporum transeant; quanto hic mirabilior vir, qui per ferrum et ruinas et ignes inlaesus et indemnis evasit! Vides, quanto facilius sit totam gentem quam unum virum vincere? Haec vox illi communis est cum Stoico. Aeque et hic intacta bona per concrematas urbes fert. Se enim ipso contentus est. Hoc felicitatem suam fine designat.

Lest you think we alone fling out noble words: Epicurus himself — Stilbo’s very rebuker — uttered a saying like his, which take in good part, even though I have already canceled today’s account. "If to anyone," he says, "his own possessions do not seem most ample, then, though he be lord of the whole world, he is wretched." Or, if it seems to you better put this way — for the point is that we serve not the words but the senses: "He is wretched who does not judge himself most happy, though he command the world."

Ne existimes nos solos generosa verba iactare; et ipse Stilbonis obiurgator Epicurus similem illi vocem emisit, quam tu boni consule, etiam si hunc diem iam expunxi. Si cui, inquit, sua non videntur amplissima, licet totius mundi dominus sit, tamen miser est. Vel si hoc modo tibi melius enuntiari videtur,— id enim agendum est, ut non verbis serviamus, sed sensibus,—: Miser est, qui se non beatissimum iudicat, licet imperet mundo.

"No man is happy who does not think himself so."

Non est beatus, esse se qui non putat.

"What then?" you say. "If that man — basely rich, lord of many but slave of more — calls himself happy, will he become happy by his own verdict?" It is not what he says that matters, but what he feels; nor what he feels on a single day, but what he feels without ceasing. But there is no reason for you to fear that so great a thing should come to one unworthy of it: only to the wise man do his own goods please him. All folly labors under disgust at itself. Farewell.

Quid ergo? inquis. Si beatum se dixerit ille turpiter dives et ille multorum dominus sed plurium servus, beatus sua sententia fiet? Non quid dicat, sed quid sentiat, refert, nec quid uno die sentiat, sed quid adsidue. Non est autem quod verearis, ne ad indignum res tanta perveniat; nisi sapienti sua non placent. Omnis stultitia laborat fastidio sui. Vale.

So it is — I do not change my mind: flee the multitude, flee the few, flee even the single man. I have no one to whom I would wish you shared out. And see what judgment I hold of you: I dare to entrust you to yourself. Crates — the hearer, they say, of this very Stilbo whom I mentioned in the last letter — when he had seen a young man walking by himself in a lonely place, asked what he was doing there alone. "I am talking with myself," he said. To which Crates: "Take care, I beg you, and attend closely: you are talking with a bad man."

Sic est, non muto sententiam: fuge multitudinem, fuge paucitatem, fuge etiam unum. Non habeo, cum quo te communicatum velim. Et vide, quod iudicium meum habeas: audeo te tibi credere. Crates, ut aiunt, huius ipsius Stilbonis auditor, cuius mentionem priore epistula feci, cum vidisset adulescentulum secreto ambulantem, interrogavit, quid illic solus faceret? Mecum, inquit, loquor. Cui Crates Cave, inquit, rogo, et diligenter adtende; cum homine malo loqueris.

We are accustomed to keep watch over the grieving and the fearful, lest they make ill use of their solitude. There is no imprudent man who ought to be left to himself; then they turn over bad counsels, then they build up dangers to come — for others or for themselves; then they marshal their wicked desires; then the mind lays out whatever it had hidden through fear or shame; then it whets its boldness, goads its lust, kindles its anger. In short, the one advantage solitude has — to confide nothing to anyone, to fear no informer — is lost on the fool: he betrays himself. See, then, what I hope for you — or rather, what I pledge to myself; for hope is the name of an uncertain good: I find no one with whom I would rather have you be than with yourself.

Lugentem timentemque custodire solemus, ne solitudine male utatur. Nemo est ex inprudentibus, qui relinqui sibi debeat; tunc mala consilia agitant, tunc aut aliis aut ipsis futura pericula struunt; tunc cupiditates improbas ordinant; tunc quicquid aut metu aut pudore celabat, animus exponit, tunc audaciam acuit, libidinem inritat, iracundiam instigat. Denique quod unum solitudo habet commodum, nihil ulli committere, non timere indicem, perit stulto; ipse se prodit. Vide itaque, quid de te sperem, immo quid spondeam mihi, spes enim incerti boni nomen est: non invenio, cum quo te malim esse quam tecum.

I call back to memory with how great a spirit you flung out certain words, how full of strength. I congratulated myself at once and said: "These did not come from the edge of the lips; these utterances have a foundation. This man is not one of the crowd; he looks toward his own deliverance."

Repeto memoria, quam magno animo quaedam verba proieceris, quanti roboris plena. Gratulatus sum protinus mihi et dixi: Non a summis labris ista venerunt, habent hae voces fundamentum. Iste homo non est unus e populo, ad salutem spectat.

So speak, so live; see that nothing drags you down. Your old prayers you may release the gods from honoring; take up others afresh. Pray for a good mind, for good health of soul, and then, after that, of body. Why should you not make those prayers often? Boldly ask god; you will be asking him for nothing out of another’s store.

Sic loquere, sic vive; vide ne te ulla res deprimat. Votorum tuorum veterum licet dis gratiam facias, alia de integro suscipe; roga bonam mentem, bonam valitudinem animi, deinde tunc corporis. Quidni tu ista vota saepe facias? Audacter deum roga; nihil illum de alieno rogaturus es.

But, to send my letter as is my custom with some small gift: it is true, what I found in Athenodorus: "Know that you are free of all desires when you have come to this, that you ask god for nothing except what you can ask openly." For how great is men’s madness now! They whisper the foulest prayers to the gods; if anyone brings an ear close, they fall silent. And what they do not want a man to know, they tell to god. See, then, whether this could not be wholesomely enjoined: so live with men as if god saw; so speak with god as if men heard. Farewell.

Sed ut more meo cum aliquo munusculo epistulam mittam, verum est, quod apud Athenodorum inveni: Tunc scito esse te omnibus cupiditatibus solutum, cum eo perveneris, ut nihil deum roges, nisi quod rogare possis palam. Nunc enim quanta dementia est hominum! Turpissima vota dis insusurrant; si quis admoverit aurem, conticescent. Et quod scire hominem nolunt, deo narrant. Vide ergo, ne hoc praecipi salubriter possit: sic vive eum hominibus, tamquam deus videat; sic loquere cum deo, tamquam homines audiant. Vale.

Your friend, a young man of good parts, spoke with me, and his first conversation showed how much spirit, how much talent, how much progress already, were in him. He gave us a foretaste, to which he will answer. For he spoke not from preparation, but caught off guard. When he tried to collect himself, he could scarcely shake off his modesty — a good sign in a young man; so deeply was the blush suffused over him. This, as far as I suspect, will follow him even when he has steadied himself and stripped off every fault — will follow him even into wisdom. For no wisdom puts off the natural faults of the body. Whatever is fixed in and inborn is softened by skill, not conquered.

Locutus est mecum amicus tuus bonae indolis, in quo quantum esset animi, quantum ingenii, quantum iam etiam profectus, sermo primus ostendit. Dedit nobis gustum, ad quem respondebit. Non enim ex praeparato locutus est, sed subito deprehensus. Ubi se colligebat, verecundiam, bonum in adulescente signum, vix potuit excutere; adeo illi ex alto suffusus est rubor. Hic illum, quantum suspicor, etiam cum se confirmaverit et omnibus vitiis exuerit, sapientem quoque sequetur. Nulla enim sapientia naturalia corporis vitia ponuntur. Quicquid infixum et ingenitum est, lenitur arte, non vincitur.

In some men, even the most self-possessed, sweat breaks out in the sight of the people, just as it does in the wearied and the overheated; in some the knees tremble as they are about to speak, in some the teeth chatter, the tongue stumbles, the lips press together. Neither training nor practice ever shakes these off; nature exercises her own force, and through that fault of hers gives warning even to the sturdiest.

Quibusdam etiam constantissimis in conspectu populi sudor erumpit, non aliter quam fatigatis et aestuantibus solet, quibusdam tremunt genua dicturis, quorundam dentes colliduntur, lingua titubat, labra concurrunt. Haec nec disciplina nec usus umquam excutit, sed natura vim suam exercet et illo vitio sui etiam robustissimos admonet.

Among these things, I know, is the blush too, which suddenly floods even the gravest men. It shows more in the young, who have both more heat and a tender brow; yet it touches veterans and old men as well. Some are never more to be feared than when they have blushed, as if they had poured out all their shame.

Inter haec esse et ruborem scio, qui gravissimis quoque viris subitus adfunditur. Magis quidem in iuvenibus apparet, quibus et plus caloris est et tenera frons; nihilominus et veteranos et senes tangit. Quidam numquam magis, quam cum erubuerint, timendi sunt, quasi omnem verecundiam effuderint.

Sulla was at his most violent when the blood had flooded his face. Nothing was softer than Pompey’s face; he never failed to blush before a crowd, above all in the public assemblies. Fabianus, when he had been brought in as a witness before the senate, blushed, I remember, and this modesty became him wonderfully.

Sulla tunc erat violentissimus, cum faciem eius sanguis invaserat. Nihil erat mollius ore Pompei; numquam non coram pluribus rubuit, utique in contionibus. Fabianum, cum in senatum testis esset inductus, erubuisse memini, et hic illum mire pudor decuit.

This happens not from weakness of mind, but from the newness of the thing, which moves the unpracticed — even if it does not shake them — since they are prone to it by the body’s natural readiness for this. For as some men are of good blood, so some are of quick and restless blood that rushes readily to the face.

Non accidit hoc ab infirmitate mentis, sed a novitate rei, quae inexercitatos, etiamsi non concutit, movet naturali in hoc facilitate corporis pronos. Nam ut quidam boni sanguinis sunt, ita quidam incitati et mobilis et cito in os prodeuntis.

These things, as I said, no wisdom drives off; otherwise it would have nature under its command, if it could erase every fault. Whatever the condition of one’s birth and the body’s temper have assigned will cling, however much and however long the mind has composed itself. None of these can be forbidden, no more than it can be summoned.

Haec, ut dixi, nulla sapientia abigit; alioquin haberet rerum naturam sub imperio, si omnia eraderet vitia. Quaecumque adtribuit condicio nascendi et corporis temperatum, cum multum se diuque animus conposuerit, haerebunt. Nihil horum vetari potest, non magis quam accersi.

Stage-players, who imitate the passions, who express fear and trembling, who represent sorrow, imitate modesty by this token: they cast down the face, lower the voice, fix their eyes on the ground and hold them down. But a blush they cannot summon for themselves; it is neither prevented nor produced. Against these things wisdom promises nothing, accomplishes nothing; they are their own masters — unbidden they come, unbidden they depart.

Artifices scaenici, qui imitantur adfectus, qui metum et trepidationem exprimunt, qui tristitiam repraesentant, hoc indicio imitantur verecundiam: deiciunt enim vultum, verba submittunt, figunt in terram oculos et deprimunt. Ruborem sibi exprimere non possunt; nec prohibetur hic nec adducitur. Nihil adversus haec sapientia promittit, nihil proficit; sui iuris sunt, iniussa veniunt, iniussa discedunt.

Now the letter demands its closing clause. Take one — and a useful and wholesome one, which I want you to fasten in your mind: "Some good man must be chosen by us and kept always before our eyes, so that we may live as if he were watching, and do everything as if he saw."

Iam clausulam epistula poscit. Accipe, et quidem utilem ac salutarem, quam te affigere animo volo: Aliquis vir bonus nobis diligendus est ac semper ante oculos habendus, ut sic tamquam illo spectante vivamus et omnia tamquam illo vidente faciamus.

This, my Lucilius, Epicurus taught. He has given us a guardian and a tutor — and not without cause. A great part of our sins is removed if a witness stands by those about to sin. Let the mind have someone it reveres, by whose authority it may make even its private hours more sacred. O happy the man who improves another not only when present, but even when imagined! O happy the man who can so revere someone as to compose and order himself even at the memory of him! He who can so revere another will soon be worthy of reverence himself.

Hoc, mi Lucili, Epicurus praecepit. Custodem nobis et paedagogum dedit, nec immerito. Magna pars peccatorum tollitur, si peccaturis testis adsistit. Aliquem habeat animus, quem vereatur, cuius auctoritate etiam secretum suum sanctius faciat. O felicem illum, qui non praesens tantum, sed etiam cogitatus emendat! O felicem, qui sic aliquem vereri potest, ut ad memoriam quoque eius se conponat atque ordinet! Qui sic aliquem vereri potest, cito erit verendus.

Choose, then, Cato. If he seems to you too rigid, choose a man of gentler spirit, Laelius. Choose the one whose life and speech, and whose very face bearing his soul before it, have pleased you; show him to yourself always, as guardian or as model. We need, I say, someone against whom our characters may measure themselves; you will not straighten what is crooked except by a rule. Farewell.

Elige itaque Catonem. Si hic tibi videtur nimis rigidus, elige remissioris animi virum Laelium. Elige eum, cuius tibi placuit et vita et oratio et ipse animum ante se ferens vultus; illum tibi semper ostende vel custodem vel exemplum. Opus est, inquam, aliquo, ad quem mores nostri se ipsi exigant; nisi ad regulam prava non corriges. Vale.

Wherever I turn, I see the proofs of my old age. I had come to my house in the suburbs and was complaining of the cost of the building, which was falling into ruin. The steward told me it was no fault of his negligence — he was doing everything, but the house was old. This house grew up under my own hands; what is in store for me, if stones of my own age are so rotten?

Quocumque me verti, argumenta senectutis meae video. Veneram in suburbanum meum et querebar de inpensis aedificii dilabentis. Ait vilicus mihi non esse neglegentiae suae vitium, omnia se facere, sed villam veterem esse. Haec villa inter manus meas crevit; quid mihi futurum est, si tam putria sunt aetatis meae saxa?

Angry with him, I seized the nearest occasion for venting my spleen. "It is plain," I said, "that these plane trees are neglected; they have no leaves. How knotted and shriveled the branches are, how dismal and squalid the trunks! This would not happen if someone dug round them, if he watered them." He swears by my guardian spirit that he is doing everything, slackening his care in nothing, but that they are old. Between ourselves: I had planted them, I had seen their first leaf.

Iratus illi proximam occasionem stomachandi arripio. Apparet, inquam, has platanos neglegi; nullas habent frondes. Quam nodosi sunt et retorridi rami, quam tristes et squalidi trunci! Hoc non accideret, si quis has circumfoderet, si inrigaret. Iurat per genium meum se omnia facere, in nulla re cessare curam suam, sed illas vetulas esse. Quod intra nos sit, ego illas posueram, ego illarum primum videram folium.

Turning to the door: "Who is that," I said, "that decrepit fellow, and rightly stationed at the doorway? For he looks outward. Where did you get him? What pleased you in carrying off another man’s corpse?" But the man said: "Do you not recognize me? I am Felicio, to whom you used to bring little figurines. I am the son of the steward Philositus, your little pet." "The man is raving outright," I said. "Has my little pet now turned into a little boy again? It may well be: his teeth are dropping out this very moment."

Conversus ad ianuam Quis est iste? inquam, iste decrepitus et merito ad ostium admotus? Foras enim spectat. Unde istunc nactus es? Quid te delectavit alienum mortuum tollere? At ille Non cognoscis me? inquit. Ego sum Felicio, cui solebas sigillaria adferre. Ego sum Philositi vilici filius, deliciolum tuum. Perfecte, inquam, iste delirat. Pupulus etiam delicium meum factus est? Prorsus potest fieri; dentes illi cum maxime cadunt.

I owe it to this suburban house of mine that my old age was plain to me wherever I turned. Let us embrace it and love it; it is full of pleasure, if you know how to use it. Apples are most welcome as they are passing; boyhood’s grace is greatest at its going; for those given to wine, the last cup delights — the one that drowns them, that lays the final hand on their drunkenness.

Debeo hoc suburbano meo, quod mihi senectus mea, quocumque adverteram, apparuit. Conplectamur illam et amemus; plena est voluptatis, si illa scias uti. Gratissima sunt poma, cum fugiunt; pueritiae maximus in exitu decor est; deditos vino potio extrema delectat, illa quae mergit, quae ebrietati summam manum inponit.

What is most pleasant in itself, every pleasure keeps for its own ending. Most pleasant is the age now sloping down, but not yet sheer. And even the age that stands on the last tile, I judge, has its own pleasures — or else this very thing comes in the place of pleasures: to need none. How sweet it is to have worn out one’s desires and left them behind!

Quod in se iucundissimum omnis voluptas habet, in finem sui differt. Iucundissima est aetas devexa iam, non tamen praeceps. Et illam quoque in extrema tegula stantem iudico habere suas voluptates. Aut hoc ipsum succedit in locum voluptatum, nullis egere. Quam dulce est cupiditates fatigasse ac reliquisse.

"It is troublesome," you say, "to have death before one’s eyes." First, it ought to be before the old man’s eyes as much as the young man’s; for we are not summoned in the order of the census. Next, no one is so old that he might not, without impropriety, hope for one more day. And one day is a step of life. The whole of life consists of parts, and has larger orbits drawn around smaller. There is one that embraces and girds all the rest; this reaches from birth to the last day. There is another that encloses the years of youth. There is one that binds the whole of childhood within its compass. Then there is the year itself, containing all the seasons by whose multiplication life is composed. The month is girdled by a narrower circle. The day has the smallest ring, but it too comes from a beginning to an end, from sunrise to sunset.

Molestum est, inquis, mortem ante oculos habere. Primum ista tam seni ante oculos debet esse quam iuveni. Non enim citamur ex censu. Deinde nemo tam senex est, ut inprobe unum diem speret. Unus autem dies gradus vitae est. Tota aetas partibus constat et orbes habet circumductos maiores minoribus. Est aliquis, qui omnis conplectatur et cingat; hic pertinet a natali ad diem extremum. Est alter, qui annos adulescentiae cludit. Est qui totam pueritiam ambitu suo adstringit. Est deinde per se annus in se omnia continens tempora, quorum multiplicatione vita conponitur. Mensis artiore praecingitur circulo. Angustissimum habet dies gyrum, sed et hic ab initio ad exitum venit, ab ortu ad occasum.

Therefore Heraclitus, to whom the obscurity of his speech gave his surname, said: "One day is equal to every day." This different men took differently. One said it is equal in hours, and he does not lie; for if a day is a span of twenty-four hours, all days must be equal to one another, since the night takes on what the day has lost. Another says one day is equal to all in likeness; for the span of the longest stretch of time has nothing that you would not find also in a single day — light and darkness — and across eternity the day makes these alternations more numerous, not other: now more contracted, now more drawn out.

Ideo Heraclitus, cui cognomen fecit orationis obscuritas, Unus, inquit, dies par omni est. Hoc alius aliter excepit. Dixit enim parem esse horis, nec mentitur; nam si dies est tempus viginti et quattuor horarum, necesse est omnes inter se dies pares esse, quia nox habet, quod dies perdidit. Alius ait parem esse unum diem omnibus similitudine; nihil enim habet longissimi temporis spatium, quod non et in uno die invenias, lucem et noctem, et in aeternum dies vices plures facit istas, non alias contractior, alias productior.

So every day must be ordered as if it brought up the rear, rounded off and filled out a life. Pacuvius, who made Syria his own by long possession, when he had made his funeral offerings to himself with wine and those funeral feasts, used to be carried thus from dinner to his bedchamber, while amid the applause of his catamites this was sung to the music: bebiotai, bebiotai — "he has lived, he has lived."

Itaque sic ordinandus est dies omnis, tamquam cogat agmen et consummet atque expleat vitam. Pacuvius, qui Syriam usu suam fecit, cum vino et illis funebribus epulis sibi parentaverat, sic in cubiculum ferebatur a cena, ut inter plausus exoletorum hoc ad symphoniam caneretur: βεβίωται, βεβίωται.

"I have lived, and the course that fortune gave I have run to the end."

Vixi et quem dederat cursum fortuna, peregi.

But now I ought to close the letter. "So," you say, "will it come to me without any little savings?" Do not fear; it brings something with it. Why did I say something? Much. For what is more splendid than this saying, which I hand to it to carry to you? "It is an evil to live under constraint; but there is no constraint to live under constraint." Why should there be none? On every side lie many roads to freedom, short and easy. Let us give thanks to god that no one can be held fast in life. We are free to trample down the very constraints.

Sed iam debeo epistulam includere. Sic, inquis, sine ullo ad me peculio veniet? Noli timere; aliquid secum fert. Quare aliquid dixi? Multum. Quid enim hac voce praeclarius, quam illi trado ad te perferendam? Malum est in necessitate vivere; sed in necessitate vivere necessitas nulla est. Quidni nulla sit? Patent undique ad libertatem viae multae breves, faciles. Agamus deo gratias, quod nemo in vita teneri potest. Calcare ipsas necessitates licet.

"Epicurus," you say, "said it." What have you to do with another’s property? What is true is mine. I will persist in thrusting Epicurus upon you, so that those who swear by the words — who weigh not what is said but by whom — may know that the best things are common property. Farewell.

Epicurus, inquis, dixit. Quid tibi cum alieno? Quod verum est, meum est. Perseverabo Epicurum tibi ingerere, ut isti, qui in verba iurant, nec quid dicatur aestimant, sed a quo, sciant, quae optima sunt, esse communia. Vale.

I know you have great spirit. For even before you furnished yourself with salutary precepts, and ones that overcome hardship, you were sufficiently pleased with yourself against fortune — and much more so after you joined hands with her and tested your own strength, which can never give sure confidence of itself except when many difficulties have appeared on this side and that, and sometimes even drawn nearer. So is that true spirit proved, the one that will not come under another’s sway.

Multum tibi esse animi scio. Nam etiam antequam instrueres te praeceptis salutaribus et dura vincentibus, satis adversus fortunam placebas tibi, et multo magis, postquam cum illa manum conseruisti viresque expertus es tuas, quae numquam certam dare fiduciam sui possunt, nisi cum multae difficultates hinc et illinc apparuerunt, aliquando vero et propius accesserunt; sic verus ille animus et in alienum non venturus arbitrium probatur.

This is its assay: the athlete cannot bring great courage to the contest who has never been bruised; but the man who has seen his own blood, whose teeth have cracked under the fist, the man who, tripped, has borne his adversary with his whole body and, thrown, has not thrown away his spirit — who, as often as he has fallen, has risen the more defiant — he goes down to the fight with great hope.

Haec eius obrussa est: non potest athleta magnos spiritus ad certamen adferre, qui numquam suggillatus est; ille, qui sanguinem suum vidit, cuius dentes crepuere sub pugno, ille, qui subplantatus adversarium toto tulit corpore nec proiecit animum proiectus, qui quotiens cecidit, contumacior resurrexit, cum magna spe descendit ad pugnam.

So, to follow out that comparison: often already fortune has been on top of you, and yet you did not surrender yourself, but sprang up and stood the fiercer. For virtue, when challenged, adds much to itself; yet, if you please, take from me the aids with which you may fortify yourself.

Ergo, ut similitudinem istam prosequar, saepe iam fortuna supra te fuit, nec tamen tradidisti te, sed subsiluisti et acrior constitisti. Multum enim adicit sibi virtus lacessita; tamen si tibi videtur, accipe a me auxilia, quibus munire te possis.

There are more things, Lucilius, that frighten us than that crush us, and we suffer more often in imagination than in reality. I am not speaking with you in the Stoic tongue, but in this lowlier one. For we Stoics say that all these things which wring out groans and bellowings are slight and to be despised; let us leave aside these grand words — true though they are, good gods. What I counsel you is this: do not be wretched before your time, since the things you have dreaded as if impending may perhaps never come, and certainly have not yet come.

Plura sunt, Lucili, quae nos terrent, quam quae premunt, et saepius opinione quam re laboramus. Non loquor tecum Stoica lingua, sed hac submissiore. Nos enim dicimus omnia ista, quae gemitus mugitusque exprimunt, levia esse et contemnenda; omittamus haec magna verba, sed, di boni, vera. Illud tibi praecipio, ne sis miser ante tempus, cum illa, quae velut imminentia expavisti, fortasse numquam ventura sint, certe non venerint.

Some things, then, torment us more than they should; some torment us before they should; some torment us when they ought not to at all. We either magnify our pain, or invent it, or anticipate it. The first of these — since the matter is in dispute and we have the suit joined — let it be put off for the present. What I shall call slight, you will contend is most grave; I know that some men laugh under the lash, others groan at a cuff. We shall see later whether these things have power by their own strength or by our weakness.

Quaedam ergo nos magis torquent quam debent; quaedam ante torquent quam debent; quaedam torquent, cum omnino non debeant. Aut augemus dolorem aut fingimus aut praecipimus. Primum illud, quia res in controversia est et litem contestatam habemus, in praesentia differatur. Quod ego leve dixero, tu gravissimum esse contendes; scio alios inter flagella ridere, alios gemere sub colapho. Postea videbimus, utrum ista suis viribus valeant an inbecillitate nostra.

Grant me this: that, as often as those stand round you who would persuade you that you are wretched, you consider not what you hear but what you feel, and take counsel with your own endurance, and question yourself — you who know your own affairs best: "Why do these men bewail me? Why do they tremble, why do they fear even contact with me, as if calamity could leap across? Is there really some evil here, or is the thing more disreputable than evil?" Question yourself: "Am I being tormented and grieving without cause, and making an evil of what is none?"

Illud praesta mihi, ut, quotiens circumsteterint, qui tibi te miserum esse persuadeant, non quid audias, sed quid sentias, cogites et cum patientia tua deliberes ac te ipse interroges, qui tua optime nosti: Quid est, quare isti me conplorent? Quid est, quod trepident, quod contagium quoque mei timeant, quasi transilire calamitas possit? Est aliquid istic mali, an res ista magis infamis est quam mala? Ipse te interroga: Numquid sine causa crucior et maereo et quod non est malum, facio?

"How," you say, "shall I understand whether the things that distress me are empty or true?" Take the rule of this matter: we are tormented either by present things, or by things to come, or by both. About present things the judgment is easy: if your body is free and sound, and there is no pain from any injury, we shall see what is to come; today’s business has none in it.

Quomodo, inquis, intellegam, vana sint an vera, quibus angor? Accipe huius rei regulam: aut praesentibus torquemur aut futuris aut utrisque. De praesentibus facile iudicium est; si corpus tuum liberum et sanum est, nec ullus ex iniuria dolor est. Videbimus quid futurum sit. Hodie nihil negotii habet.

"But it is going to happen." First look closely whether there are sure proofs of the coming evil. For most of the time we suffer from suspicions, and that rumor which is wont to decide a war makes sport of us — and decides individuals far more. So it is, my Lucilius: we go over quickly to opinion. We do not test the things that drive us into fear, nor shake them out, but we tremble and turn our backs, just like those whom a cloud of dust raised by a stampede of cattle drives out of camp, or whom some tale, spread without an author, has terrified.

At enim futurum est. Primum dispice, an certa argumenta sint venturi mali. Plerumque enim suspicionibus laboramus, et inludit nobis illa, quae conficere bellum solet, fama, multo autem magis singulos conficit. Ita est, mi Lucili; cito accedimus opinioni Non coarguimus illa, quae nos in metum adducunt, nec excutimus, sed trepidamus et sic vertimus terga, quemadmodum illi, quos pulvis motus fuga pecorum exuit castris, aut quos aliqua fabula sine auctore sparsa conterruit.

Somehow the empty things disturb us more. For true things have their own measure; whatever comes from the uncertain is handed over to guesswork and to the license of a frightened mind. No fears, therefore, are so ruinous, so past recall, as the panic-stricken ones. For other fears are without reason, but these are without sense.

Nescio quomodo magis vana perturbant. Vera enim modum suum habent; quicquid ex incerto venit, coniecturae et paventis animi licentiae traditur. Nulli itaque tam perniciosi, tam inrevocabiles quam lymphatici metus sunt. Ceteri enim sine ratione, hi sine mente sunt.

Let us, then, inquire diligently into the matter. It is likely that some evil is to come; it is not at once true. How many things have come unexpected! How many expected things have nowhere appeared! Even if it is to come, what does it help to run to meet your own pain? You will grieve soon enough when it comes; meanwhile promise yourself better things.

Inquiramus itaque in rem diligenter. Verisimile est aliquid futurum mali; non statim verum est. Quam multa non expectata venerunt! Quam multa expectata nusquam conparuerunt! Etiam si futurum est, quid iuvat dolori suo occurrere? Satis cito dolebis, cum venerit; interim tibi meliora promitte.

What will you gain? Time. Many things will intervene by which a danger that is near, or even brought close, may halt, or cease, or pass to another’s head. A fire has opened the way to flight; a collapsing house has set some men down softly; sometimes the sword has been called back from the very neck; a man has outlived his own executioner. Even bad fortune has its fickleness. Perhaps it will be, perhaps it will not; meanwhile it is not. Set the better before you.

Quid facies lucri? Tempus. Multa intervenient, quibus vicinum periculum vel prope admotum aut subsistat aut desinat aut in alienum caput transeat. Incendium ad fugam patuit; quosdam molliter ruina deposuit; aliquando gladius ab ipsa cervice revocatus est; aliquis carnifici suo superstes fuit. Habet etiam mala fortuna levitatem. Fortasse erit, fortasse non erit; interim non est. Meliora propone.

Sometimes, with no signs appearing to forewarn of any evil, the mind feigns false images for itself; it either twists some word of doubtful meaning to the worse, or imagines someone’s offense against it greater than it is, and reckons not how angry the man is, but how much is permitted to an angry man. But there is no reason to live, no limit to miseries, if one fears as much as one possibly can. Here let prudence be of use; here, with strength of mind, spurn even an evident fear. If not, drive out one fault by another: temper fear with hope. Nothing among the things that are feared is so certain that it is not more certain still that dreaded things subside and hoped-for things deceive.

Nonnumquam nullis apparentibus signis, quae mali aliquid praenuntient, animus sibi falsas imagines fingit; aut verbum aliquod dubiae significationis detorquet in peius aut maiorem sibi offensam proponit alicuius quam est, et cogitat non quam iratus ille sit, sed quantum liceat irato. Nulla autem causa vitae est, nullus miseriarum modus, si timeatur quantum potest; hic prudentia prosit, hic robore animi evidentem quoque metum respue. Si minus, vitio vitium repelle; spe metum tempera. Nihil tam certum est ex his, quae timentur, ut non certius sit et formidata subsidere et sperata decipere.

So weigh hope and fear, and as often as all things are uncertain, favor yourself: believe what you would rather. If fear has the more votes, incline nonetheless to this side, and cease to trouble yourself, and turn this over again and again in your mind: that the greater part of mortals, when there is neither any evil present nor anything to come for certain, are in a fever and dashing about. For no one resists himself once he has begun to be driven, nor reduces his fear to the truth. No one says: "The author is empty; he has either invented this or believed it." We give ourselves up to be carried by the breeze.

Ergo spem ac metum examina, et quotiens incerta erunt omnia, tibi fave; crede quod mavis. Si plures habet sententias metus, nihilominus in hanc partem potius inclina et perturbare te desine, ac subinde hoc in animo volve, maiorem partem mortalium, cum illi nec sit quicquam mali nec pro certo futurum sit, aestuare ac discurrere. Nemo enim resistit sibi, cum coepit inpelli, nec timorem suum redigit ad verum. Nemo dicit: Vanus auctor est, vanus haec aut finxit aut credidit. Damus nos aurae ferendos.

We dread doubtful things as if they were certain. We keep no measure in our affairs. At once a scruple turns into terror. I am ashamed, and sorry, to speak with you thus, and to coddle you with such mild remedies. Let another say: "Perhaps it will not come." You say: "What of it, if it does come? We shall see which of us wins. Perhaps it comes on my behalf, and that death will do honor to my life." The hemlock made Socrates great. Wrench from Cato the sword that vindicated his freedom, and you will have taken away a great part of his glory.

Expavescimus dubia pro certis. Non servamus modum rerum. Statim in timorem vertit scrupulus. Pudet me et triste tecum loqui, et tam lenibus te remediis focillare. Alius dicat: Fortasse non veniet. Tu dic: Quid porro, si veniet? Videbimus uter vincat. Fortasse pro me venit, et mors ista vitam honestabit. Cicuta magnum Socratem fecit. Catoni gladium adsertorem libertatis extorque; magnam partem detraxeris gloriae.

I am exhorting you too long, when you have need of reminding rather than of exhortation. We are not leading you in a direction contrary to your nature; you were born to the things we speak of. All the more, then, increase and adorn your own good.

Nimium diu te cohortor, cum tibi admonitione magis quam exhortatione opus sit. Non in diversum te a natura tua ducimus; natus es ad ista, quae dicimus. Eo magis bonum tuum auge et exorna.

But now I will make an end of the letter, if I have stamped my seal upon it — that is, if I have charged it to carry some magnificent saying to you. Among its other evils, folly has this one too: it is always beginning to live. Consider what that saying means, Lucilius, best of men, and you will understand how foul is the fickleness of men who lay new foundations of life every day, who begin new hopes even at the very end.

Sed iam finem epistulae faciam, si illi signum suum inpressero, id est aliquam magnificam vocem perferendam ad te mandavero. Inter cetera mala hoc quoque habet stultitia: semper incipit vivere. Considera quid vox ista significet, Lucili virorum optime, et intelleges, quam foeda sit hominum levitas cotidie nova vitae fundamenta ponentium, novas spes etiam in exitu inchoantium.

Look round at them one by one; old men will meet you who are at this very moment preparing themselves for ambition, for travels, for trade. And what is fouler than an old man beginning to live? I would not add the author to this saying, except that it is rather out of the way, and not among the common sayings of Epicurus which I have allowed myself both to praise and to adopt as my own. Farewell.

Circumspice tecum singulos; occurrent tibi senes, qui se cum maxime ad ambitionem, ad peregrinationes, ad negotiandum parent. Quid est autem turpius quam senex vivere incipiens? Non adicerem auctorem huic voci, nisi esset secretior nec inter vulgata Epicuri dicta, quae mihi et laudare et adoptare permisi. Vale.

I confess that an affection for our own body is implanted in us; I confess that we have the keeping of it. I do not deny that it should be indulged; I deny that it should be served. For the man who serves his body serves many masters — the man who fears too much for it, who refers everything to it.

Fateor insitam esse nobis corporis nostri caritatem; fateor nos huius gerere tutelam. Non nego indulgendum illi; serviendum nego. Multis enim serviet, qui corpori servit, qui pro illo nimium timet, qui ad illud omnia refert.

We ought to bear ourselves not as though we had to live for the body’s sake, but as though we could not live without the body. Too great a love of it disquiets us with fears, burdens us with anxieties, exposes us to insults. The honorable is cheap to the man whose body is too dear to him. Let its care be tended most diligently, yet on this condition: that when reason, when dignity, when good faith demand it, it must be cast into the flames.

Sic gerere nos debemus, non tamquam propter corpus vivere debeamus, sed tamquam non possimus sine corpore. Huius nos nimius amor timoribus inquietat, sollicitudinibus onerat, contumeliis obicit. Honestum ei vile est, cui corpus nimis carum est. Agatur eius diligentissime cura, ita tamen, ut cum exiget ratio, cum dignitas, cum fides, mittendum in ignes sit.

Nonetheless, as far as we can, let us avoid discomforts too, not only dangers, and withdraw ourselves into safety, contriving from time to time the means by which the things to be feared may be driven off. Of these, unless I am mistaken, there are three kinds: poverty is feared, diseases are feared, and the things that come through the violence of one more powerful.

Nihilominus, quantum possumus, evitemus incommoda quoque, non tantum pericula, et in tutum nos reducamus excogitantes subinde, quibus possint timenda depelli. Quorum tria, nisi fallor, genera sunt: timetur inopia, timentur morbi, timentur quae per vim potentioris eveniunt.

Of all these, nothing shakes us more than what hangs over us from another’s power. For it comes with great din and uproar. The natural evils I mentioned — poverty and disease — steal up in silence and strike no terror into eye or ear. The other evil has a vast parade. It has steel about it, and fires, and chains, and a herd of beasts to loose upon human flesh.

Ex his omnibus nihil nos magis concutit, quam quod ex aliena potentia inpendet. Magno enim strepitu et tumultu venit. Naturalia mala quae rettuli, inopia atque morbus, silentio subeunt nec oculis nec auribus quicquam terroris incutiunt. Ingens alterius mali pompa est. Ferrum circa se et ignes habet et catenas et turbam ferarum, quam in viscera inmittat humana.

Picture, in this connection, the prison, and the crosses, and the racks, and the hook, and the stake driven through a man to come out at his mouth, and limbs wrenched apart by chariots driven in opposite directions, and that tunic steeped and woven for the feeding of flames, and whatever else cruelty has devised besides these.

Cogita hoc loco carcerem et cruces et eculeos et uncum et adactum per medium hominem, qui per os emergeret, stipitem et distracta in diversum actis curribus membra, illam tunicam alimentis ignium et inlitam et textam, et quicquid aliud praeter haec commenta saevitia est.

It is no wonder, then, if the greatest fear is of this thing, whose variety is great and whose apparatus is terrible. For just as the torturer accomplishes more the more instruments of pain he has laid out — since men are conquered by the spectacle who would have held out under the suffering — so, of the things that subdue and master our minds, those accomplish more which have something to show. Those other plagues are no less grievous — I mean hunger and thirst, and the festering of the vitals, and the fever that scorches the very entrails. But they lie hidden; they have nothing to threaten with, nothing to flaunt; these others, like great wars, have conquered by their look and their array.

Non est itaque mirum, si maximus huius rei timor est, cuius et varietas magna et apparatus terribilis est. Nam quemadmodum plus agit tortor, quo plura instrumenta doloris exposuit (specie enim vincuntur qui patientia restitissent); ita ex iis, quae animos nostros subigunt et domant, plus proficiunt, quae habent quod ostendant. Illae pestes non minus graves sunt, famem dico et sitim et praecordiorum subpurationes et febrem viscera ipsa torrentem. Sed latent, nihil habent quod intentent, quod praeferant; haec ut magna bella aspectu apparatuque vicerunt.

Let us, then, take pains to keep clear of giving offense. Sometimes it is the people we must fear; sometimes — if the constitution of the state is such that most business is transacted through the senate — the men in favor there; sometimes individuals to whom the power of the people, and over the people, has been given. To have all of these as friends is laborious; it is enough not to have them as enemies. And so the wise man will never provoke the anger of the powerful — indeed, he will turn aside from it, just as, in sailing, from a storm.

Demus itaque operam, abstineamus offensis. Interdum populus est, quem timere debeamus; interdum si ea civitatis disciplina est, ut plurima per senatum transigantur, gratiosi in eo viri; interdum singuli, quibus potestas populi et in populum data est. Hos omnes amicos habere operosum est, satis est inimicos non habere. Itaque sapiens numquam potentium iras provocabit, immo declinabit, non aliter quam in navigando procellam.

When you were making for Sicily, you crossed the strait. The rash helmsman scorns the threats of the south wind — for it is that wind which roughens the Sicilian sea and drives it into whirlpools; he steers not for the left-hand shore, but for the one off which the nearer Charybdis churns the waters. But the more cautious helmsman asks those who know the place what the current is, what signs the clouds give; he holds his course far from that region notorious for its whirlpools. The wise man does the same: he avoids a power that will harm him, taking care first of all not to seem to avoid it. For part of safety lies in this too — not to seek it openly, since what a man flees, he condemns.

Cum peteres Siciliam, traiecisti fretum. Temerarius gubernator contempsit austri minas, ille est enim, qui Siculum pelagus exasperet et in vertices cogat; non sinistrum petit litus, sed id, a quo propior Charybdis maria convolvit. At ille cautior peritos locorum rogat, quis aestus sit, quae signa dent nubes; longe ab illa regione verticibus infami cursum tenet. Idem facit sapiens; nocituram potentiam vitat, hoc primum cavens, ne vitare videatur. Pars enim securitatis et in hoc est, non ex professo eam petere, quia, quae quis fugit, damnat.

We must look about us, then, for how we may be safe from the crowd. First, let us covet none of the same things: there is a brawl among rivals. Next, let us have nothing that could be snatched away to the great profit of one lying in wait. Let there be as little spoil as possible on your person. No one comes after human blood for its own sake — or very few. More men reckon than hate. The robber lets the naked man pass; even on a beset road there is peace for the poor.

Circumspiciendum ergo nobis est, quomodo a vulgo tuti esse possimus. Primum nihil idem concupiscamus; rixa est inter competitores. Deinde nihil habeamus, quod cum magno emolumento insidiantis eripi possit. Quam minimum sit in corpore tuo spoliorum. Nemo ad humanum sanguinem propter ipsum venit, aut admodum pauci. Plures computant quam oderunt. Nudum latro transmittit; etiam in obsessa via pauperi pax est.

Three things, then, by the old precept, must be ensured, so that they may be avoided: hatred, envy, and contempt. How this may be done, wisdom alone will show. For the balance is hard, and we must beware lest the fear of envy carry us into contempt — lest, while we are unwilling to be trampled, we seem able to be trampled. To be capable of being feared has brought many men cause for fear. Let us draw back on every side; to be despised harms no less than to be looked up to.

Tria deinde ex praecepto veteri praestanda sunt ut vitentur: odium, invidia, contemptus. Quomodo hoc fiat, sapientia sola monstrabit Difficile enim temperamentum est, verendumque, ne in contemptum nos invidiae timor transferat ne dum calcare nolumus, videamur posse calcari. Multis timendi attulit causas timeri posse. Undique nos reducamus; non minus contemni quam suspici nocet.

To philosophy, therefore, we must flee for refuge; these studies — I do not say among the good, but among the moderately bad — serve in the place of priestly fillets. For forensic eloquence, and whatever else moves the people, has its adversaries; this quiet pursuit, minding its own business, cannot be despised — the one art held in honor among all the arts, even among the worst of men. Wickedness will never grow so strong, men will never so conspire against the virtues, that the name of philosophy does not remain venerable and sacred. For the rest, philosophy itself must be handled quietly and modestly.

Ad philosophiam ergo confugiendum est; hae litterae, non dico apud bonos, sed apud mediocriter malos, infularum loco sunt. Nam forensis eloquentia et quaecumque alia populum movet, adversarios habet; haec quieta et sui negotii contemni non potest, cui ab omnibus artibus etiam apud pessimos honor est. Numquam in tantum convalescet nequitia^ numquam sic contra virtutes coniurabitur, ut non philosophiae nomen venerabile et sacrum maneat. Ceterum philosophia ipsa tranquille modesteque tractanda est.

"What then?" you say. "Does Marcus Cato seem to you to philosophize modestly, who checks a civil war with his vote? who steps in as a mediator between the arms of raging chiefs? who, while some give offense to Pompey and others to Caesar, provokes the two at once?"

Quid ergo? inquis, Videtur tibi M. Cato modeste philosophari, qui bellum civile sententia reprimit? Qui furentium principum armis medius intervenit? Qui aliis Pompeium offendentibus aliis Caesarem simul lacessit duos?

One may dispute whether, at that time, the wise man ought to have taken part in public affairs. "What do you want for yourself, Marcus Cato? It is no longer about liberty; that was ruined long ago. The question is whether Caesar or Pompey shall possess the state; what have you to do with that contest? No part of it is yours. A master is being chosen. What is it to you which conquers? The better may conquer, but the one who conquers cannot fail to be the worse." I have touched on the last part Cato played. But not even his earlier years were such as would admit the wise man into that plundering of the commonwealth; what did Cato do but shout, and send up unavailing cries, when now, lifted on the hands of the people and covered with spittle, he was dragged off to be carried out of the forum, now led from the senate to prison?

Potest aliquis disputare an illo tempore capessenda fuerit sapienti res publica. Quid tibi vis, Marce Cato? Iam non agitur de libertate; olim pessumdata est. Quaeritur, utrum Caesar an Pompeius possideat rem publicam; quid tibi cum ista contentione? Nullae partes tuae sunt; dominus eligitur. Quid tua, uter vincat? Potest melior vincere, non potest non peior esse, qui vicerit. Ultimas partes attigi Catonis. Sed ne priores quidem anni fuerunt qui sapientem in illam rapinam rei publicae admitterent; quid aliud quam vociferatus est Cato et misit irritas voces, cum modo per populi levatus manus et obrutus sputis exportandus extra forum traheretur, modo e senatu in carcerem duceretur?

But we shall see later whether the wise man ought to give his effort to public affairs; meanwhile I call you to these Stoics who, shut out from the commonwealth, withdrew to cultivate life and to lay down laws for the human race, with no offense to anyone more powerful. The wise man will not throw the public morals into confusion, nor turn the people against himself by any novelty of life.

Sed postea videbimus, an sapienti opera rei publicae danda sit; interim ad hos te Stoicos voco, qui a re publica exclusi secesserunt ad colendam vitam et humano generi iura condenda sine ulla potentioris offensa. Non conturbabit sapiens publicos mores nec populum in se vitae novitate convertet.

"What then? Will the man who follows this purpose surely be safe?" I can no more promise you this than good health in a temperate man — and yet temperance produces good health. Some ship is lost in harbor; but what do you think happens in mid-sea? How much readier would danger be for the man busy and contriving in many things, for whom not even leisure is safe? Sometimes the innocent perish — who denies it? — but the guilty more often. His art stands to the credit of the man who has been struck only through his ornaments.

Quid ergo? Utique erit tutus, qui hoc propositum sequetur? Promittere tibi hoc non magis possum quam in homine temperanti bonam valitudinem, et tamen facit temperantia bonam valitudinem. Perit aliqua navis in portu; sed quid tu accidere in medio mari credis? Quanto huic periculum paratius foret multa agenti molientique, cui ne otium quidem tutum est? Pereunt aliquando innocentes; quis negat? Nocentes tamen saepius. Ars ei constat, qui per ornamenta percussus est.

In short, the wise man looks to the plan of all things, not to the outcome. The beginnings are in our power; over the event fortune judges — to whom I grant no verdict over me. "But it will bring some harassment, some adversity." The robber does not condemn when he kills.

Denique consilium rerum omnium sapiens, non exitum spectat. Initia in potestate nostra sunt; de eventu fortuna iudicat, cui de me sententiam non do. At aliquid vexationis adferet, aliquid adversi. Non damnat latro, cum occidit.

Now you stretch out your hand for the daily dole. I will fill it with a golden dole; and since gold has been mentioned, take how the use and enjoyment of it may be more pleasing to you. He enjoys riches most who least needs riches. "Name the author," you say. That you may know how generous we are, I have made it my plan to praise what is another’s: it is Epicurus’s, or Metrodorus’s, or someone’s from that workshop.

Nunc ad cotidianam stipem manum porrigis. Aurea te stipe implebo, et quia facta est auri mentio, accipe quemadmodum usus fructusque eius tibi esse gratior possit. Is maxime divitiis fruitur, qui minime divitiis indiget. Ede, inquis, auctorem. Ut scias quam benigni simus, propositum est aliena laudare; Epicuri est aut Metrodori aut alicuius ex illa officina.

And what does it matter who said it? He said it to all. The man who needs riches fears for them. But no one enjoys a good that makes him anxious; he is forever eager to add something to it. While he thinks about increasing his wealth, he forgets to use it. He takes in accounts, wears out the forum, turns over his ledger — from a master he becomes a steward. Farewell.

Et quid interest quis dixerit? Omnibus dixit. Qui eget divitiis, timet pro illis. Nemo autem sollicito bono fruitur; adicere illis aliquid studet. Dum de incremento cogitat, oblitus est usus. Rationes accipit, forum conterit, kalendarium versat; fit ex domino procurator. Vale.

It was the custom of the ancients, kept right down to my own day, to add at the head of a letter: "If you are well, it is good; I too am well." We do rightly to say: "If you are practicing philosophy, it is good." For this, and only this, is to be well. Without it the mind is sick. The body too, even if it has great strength, is sound in no other way than a madman or a man in a frenzy is sound.

Mos antiquis fuit usque ad meam servatus aetatem, primis epistulae verbis adicere: Si vales bene est, ego valeo. Recte nos dicimus: Si philosopharis, bene est. Valere autem hoc demum est. Sine hoc aeger est animus. Corpus quoque, etiam si magnas habet vires, non aliter quam furiosi aut phrenetici validum est.

So care above all for this health, and then for that other, secondary one, which will cost you little, if you are willing to be truly well. For it is a foolish occupation, my Lucilius, and one least fitting for a man of letters, to exercise the arms, broaden the neck, and firm up the flanks; when the fattening has gone well for you and your muscles have swelled, you will never match the strength or the bulk of a prize ox. Add now that the mind is crushed by a heavier load of body and is less nimble. So as far as you can, hem in your body and give the mind room.

Ergo hanc praecipue valitudinem cura, deinde et illam secundam, quae non magno tibi constabit, si volueris bene valere. Stulta est enim, mi Lucili, et minime conveniens litterato viro occupatio exercendi lacertos et dilatandi cervicem ac latera firmandi; cum tibi feliciter sagina cesserit et tori creverint, nec vires umquam opimi bovis nec pondus aequabis. Adice nunc, quod maiore corporis sarcina animus eliditur et minus agilis est. Itaque quantum potes, circumscribe corpus tuum et animo locum laxa.

Many troubles attend those given over to this care. First the drills, whose toil drains the breath and leaves it unfit for concentration and for the keener studies. Then a glut of food blunts the mind’s fineness. Add slaves of the worst stamp, taken on as trainers, men whose business lies between oil and wine, whose day has gone according to their prayer if they have sweated well, if in place of what flowed out they have poured back much drink, to sink the deeper on an empty stomach. To drink and to sweat is the life of a dyspeptic.

Multa secuntur incommoda huic deditos curae; primum exercitationes, quarum labor spiritum exhaurit et inhabilem intentioni ac studiis acrioribus reddit. Deinde copia ciborum subtilitas inpeditur. Accedunt pessimae notae mancipia in magisterium recepta, homines inter oleum et vinum occupati, quibus ad votum dies actus est, si bene desudaverunt, si in locum eius, quod effluxit, multum potionis altius ieiunio iturae regesserunt. Bibere et sudare vita cardiaci est.

There are exercises both easy and short, which tire the body without delay and are sparing of time, of which one must take chief account: running, and the hands moved with some weight, and jumping, whether the kind that lifts the body upward or the kind that flings it forward, or the kind I might call the Salian, or, to put it more rudely, the fuller’s leap. Choose the practice of any of these, rough and easy.

Sunt exercitationes et faciles et breves, quae corpus et sine mora lassent et tempori pareant, cuius praecipua ratio habenda est: cursus et cum aliquo pondere manus motae et saltus vel ille, qui corpus in altum levat, vel ille, qui in longum mittit, vel ille, ut ita dicam, saliaris aut, ut contumeliosius dicam, fullonius; quoius libet ex his elige usum rudem, facilem.

Whatever you do, return quickly from the body to the mind. Exercise that night and day; it is nourished by moderate labor. This exercise neither cold nor heat will hinder, nor even old age. Tend that good which grows better with age.

Quicquid facies, cito redi a corpore ad animum. Illum noctibus ac diebus exerce; labore modico alitur ille. Hanc exercitationem non frigus, non aestus inpediet, ne senectus quidem. Id bonum cura, quod vetustate fit melius.

Nor do I order you to be forever bent over a book or your writing-tablets; some interval must be given to the mind, yet so that it is not unstrung, only slackened. Being carried in a litter shakes the body and does not get in the way of study; you can read, you can dictate, you can speak, you can listen, none of which even walking forbids you to do.

Neque ego te iubeo semper inminere libro aut pugillaribus; dandum est aliquod intervallum animo, ita tamen ut non resolvatur, sed remittatur. Gestatio et corpus concutit et studio non officit; possis legere, possis dictare, possis loqui, possis audire, quorum nihil ne ambulatio quidem vetat fieri.

Nor should you scorn the training of the voice, though I forbid you to raise it and then lower it by set degrees and fixed measures. What next, would you like to learn how to walk? Let in those whom hunger has taught new crafts; there will be one to regulate your steps and watch your cheeks as you eat, and who will go just as far as your patience and credulity have drawn out his nerve. What then? Will your voice begin straightway from a shout, from the utmost strain? It is so natural to be roused little by little that even men in a quarrel begin with talk and pass over to shouting. No one calls at once on the Romans’ protection.

Nec tu intentionem vocis contempseris, quam veto te per gradus et certos modos extollere, deinde deprimere. Quid si velis deinde quemadmodum ambules discere? Admitte istos, quos nova artificia docuit fames; erit qui gradus tuos temperet et buccas edentis observet et in tantum procedat, in quantum audaciam eius patientia et credulitate produxeris. Quid ergo? A clamore protinus et a summa contentione vox tua incipiet? Usque eo naturale est paulatim incitari, ut litigantes quoque a sermone incipiunt, ad vociferationem transeunt. Nemo statim Quiritium fidem inplorat.

So however the impulse of your spirit prompts you, make your outcry now more vehemently, now more slowly, as the voice too urges you toward that side. When you take it up and call it back, let it come down modestly, not crash down; let it leave by the middle path of the mouth and not rage on in an untaught, boorish manner. For we are not at this so that the voice may be exercised, but so that it may exercise us.

Ergo utcumque tibi impetus animi suaserit, modo vehementius fac convicium, modo lentius, prout vox quoque te hortabitur, in id latus. Modesta, cum recipies illam revocarisque, descendat, non decidat; media oris via abeat nec indocto et rustico more desaeviat. Non enim id agimus, ut exerceatur vox, sed ut exerceat.

I have taken no small piece of business off you; one small fee, and one Greek saying, will be added to these favors. Here is a notable precept: "A foolish life is thankless and full of dread; it is carried wholly into the future." Who says this, you ask? The same man as before. And what life do you suppose is here called foolish? Babas’s and Ision’s? Not so; ours is meant, we whom blind desire flings headlong into things that will harm us, that will certainly never sate us, we for whom, if anything could be enough, it would already have been, who do not consider how pleasant it is to demand nothing, how magnificent to be full and not to hang upon fortune.

Detraxi tibi non pusillum negotii; una mercedula et unum Graecum ad haec beneficia accedet. Ecce insigne praeceptum: Stulta vita ingrata est et trepida; tota in futurum fertur. Quis hoc, inquis, dicit? Idem qui supra. Quam tu nunc vitam dici existimas stultam? Babae et Isionis? Non ita est; nostra dicitur, quos caeca cupiditas in nocitura, certe numquam satiatura praecipitat, quibus si quid satis esse posset, fuisset, qui non cogitamus, quam iucundum sit nihil poscere, quam magnificum sit plenum esse nec ex fortuna pendere.

So from time to time, Lucilius, recall how much you have attained. When you look at how many go before you, think how many follow behind. If you wish to be grateful toward the gods and toward your own life, think how many you have outstripped. What have you to do with the rest? You have outstripped your own self.

Subinde itaque, Lucili, quam multa sis consecutus recordare. Cum aspexeris, quot te antecedant, cogita, quot sequantur. Si vis gratus esse adversus deos et adversus vitam tuam, cogita, quam multos antecesseris. Quid tibi cum ceteris? Te ipse antecessisti.

Set a limit you would not even wish to cross, though you could. Let those treacherous goods depart at last, the ones better to those who hope for them than to those who have got them. If there were anything solid in them, they would sometimes fill us too; as it is, they stir up a thirst that must be drunk down. Away with showy trappings. And as for what the uncertain lot of time to come keeps turning over, why should I sooner win from fortune that she give, than from myself that I not ask? Why ask at all? Shall I heap things up, forgetful of human frailty? To what end should I toil? Look, this day is the last. Grant that it is not: it stands near the last. Farewell.

Finem constitue, quem transire ne velis quidem, si possis; discedant aliquando ista insidiosa bona et sperantibus meliora quam adsecutis. Si quid in illis esset solidi, aliquando et inplerent; nunc hauriendum sitim concitant. Mittantur speciosi apparatus. Et quod futuri temporis incerta sors volvit, quare potius a fortuna inpetrem, ut det, quam a me, ne petam? Quare autem petam? Oblitus fragilitatis humanae congeram? In quid laborem? Ecce hic dies ultimus est. Ut non sit; prope ab ultimo est Vale.

It is clear to you, I know, Lucilius, that no one can live happily, nor even tolerably, without the pursuit of wisdom, and that the happy life is wrought by wisdom perfected, but a tolerable one even by wisdom begun. Yet this, which is clear, must be made firm and driven deeper by daily meditation; there is more work in keeping your resolves than in resolving on what is honorable. One must persevere, and add strength by unremitting study, until what is a good will becomes a good mind.

Liquere hoc tibi, Lucili, scio, neminem posse beate vivere, ne tolerabiliter quidem sine sapientiae studio et beatam vitam perfecta sapientia effici, ceterum tolerabilem etiam inchoata. Sed hoc, quod liquet, firmandum et altius cotidiana meditatione Agendum est; plus operis est in eo, ut proposita custodias quam ut honesta proponas. Perseverandum est et adsiduo studio robur addendum, donec bona mens sit quod bona voluntas est.

And so you now have no need, with me, of many words or of protestations; I see that you have made much progress. What you write, I know where it comes from; it is not feigned, not painted over. Still I will say what I feel: I have hope of you now, not yet confidence. I want you to do the same; there is no reason to trust yourself quickly and easily. Shake yourself out, scrutinize yourself from every side, and observe; above all see whether you have made progress in philosophy or in life itself.

Itaque tibi apud me pluribus verbis aut adfirmatione iam nil opus; intellego multum te profecisse. Quae scribis, unde veniant, scio; non sunt ficta nec colorata. Dicam tamen quid sentiam: iam de te spem habeo, nondum fiduciam. Tu quoque idem facias volo; non est, quod tibi cito et facile credas. Excute te et varie scrutare et observa; illud ante omnia vide, utrum in philosophia an in ipsa vita profeceris.

Philosophy is no popular craft, nor got up for display. It lies not in words but in things. Nor is it taken up for this, that the day be spent with some amusement, that the queasiness be drawn out of leisure. It molds and forges the mind, orders life, governs actions, points out what to do and what to leave undone, sits at the helm and steers a course through the hazards of those who are tossed on the waves. Without it no one can live undaunted, no one secure. Countless things happen, every single hour, that call for counsel, and counsel must be sought from her.

Non est philosophia populare artificium nec ostentationi paratum. Non in verbis, sed in rebus est. Nec in hoc adhibetur, ut cum aliqua oblectatione consumatur dies, ut dematur otio nausia. Animum format et fabricat, vitam disponit, actiones regit, agenda et omittenda demonstrat, sedet ad gubernaculum et per ancipitia fluctuantium derigit cursum. Sine hac nemo intrepide potest vivere, nemo secure. Innumerabilia accidunt singulis horis, quae consilium exigant, quod ab hac petendum est.

Someone will say: "What good is philosophy to me, if there is fate? What good, if a god is ruler? What good, if chance commands? For what is fixed cannot be changed, and nothing can be made ready against what is uncertain; either a god has forestalled my deliberation and decreed what I am to do, or fortune leaves nothing to my deliberation."

Dicet aliquis: Quid mihi prodest philosophia, si fatum est? Quid prodest, si deus rector est? Quid prodest, si casus imperat? Nam et mutari certa non possunt et nihil praeparari potest adversus incerta; sed aut consilium meum occupavit deus decrevitque quid facerem, aut consilio meo nihil fortuna permittit.

Whichever of these is so, Lucilius, or even if all of them are, one must philosophize: whether the fates bind us fast by an inexorable law, or a god as arbiter of the universe has set all things in order, or chance drives and tosses human affairs without order, philosophy must keep us safe. She will urge us to obey god gladly, fortune defiantly; she will teach you to follow god, and to bear chance.

Quicquid est ex his, Lucili, vel si omnia haec sunt, philosophandum est: sive nos inexorabili lege fata constringunt, sive arbiter deus universi cuncta disposuit, sive casus res humanas sine ordine inpellit et iactat, philosophia nos tueri debet. Haec adhortabitur, ut deo libenter pareamus, ut fortunae contumaciter; haec docebit, ut deum sequaris, feras casum.

But this is not the moment to pass over into that dispute, what falls within our own right, if providence is in command, or if a chain of fates drags us bound along, or if the sudden and abrupt hold sway. I come back now to this: to warn and exhort you not to let the impulse of your spirit slide and cool. Hold it fast and fix it in place, so that what is now an impulse may become a settled habit of mind.

Sed non est nunc in hanc disputationem transeundum, quid sit iuris nostri, si providentia in imperio est, aut si fatorum series inligatos trahit, aut si repentina ac subita dominantur; illo nunc revertor, ut te moneam et exhorter, ne patiaris inpetum animi tui delabi et refrigescere. Contine illum et constitue, ut habitus animi fiat, quod est inpetus.

Already from the start, if I know you well, you are looking round to see what little gift this letter has brought. Shake it out, and you will find it. There is no reason to wonder at my generosity; so far I am liberal with what is another’s. Yet why did I say "another’s"? Whatever has been well said by anyone is mine. This too is a saying of Epicurus: "If you live according to nature, you will never be poor; if according to opinion, you will never be rich."

Iam ab initio, si te bene novi, circumspicies, quid haec epistula munusculi attulerit. Excute illam, et invenies. Non est quod mireris animum meum; adhuc de alieno liberalis sum. Quare autem alienum dixi? Quicquid bene dictum est ab ullo, meum est. Istuc quoque ab Epicuro dictum est: Si ad naturam vives, numquam eris pauper; si ad opiniones, numquam eris dives.

Nature desires little, opinion an immensity. Let there be heaped upon you whatever many rich men have possessed; let fortune carry you beyond the private measure of money, cover you in gold, clothe you in purple, bring you to such a pitch of luxury and wealth that you hide the earth under marble, so that it is granted you not only to own riches but to tread upon them. Let statues be added, and paintings, and whatever any art has labored to produce for extravagance; from these you will learn to crave still more.

Exiguum natura desiderat, opinio inmensum. Congeratur in te quicquid multi locupletes possederant. Ultra privatum pecuniae modum fortuna te provehat, auro tegat, purpura vestiat, eo deliciarum opumque perducat, ut terram marmoribus abscondas, non tantum habere tibi liceat, sed calcare divitias. Accedant statuae et picturae et quicquid ars ulla luxuriae elaboravit; maiora cupere ab his disces.

Natural desires are finite; those born of false opinion have nowhere to stop. For the false has no boundary. To one walking a road there is some end; wandering is boundless. Draw yourself back, then, from empty things, and when you wish to know, of what you seek, whether it holds a natural or a blind desire, consider whether it can come to a stand anywhere. If, when you have gone far, there always remains something farther, know that it is not natural. Farewell.

Naturalia desideria finita sunt; ex falsa opinione nascentia ubi desinant, non habent. Nullus enim terminus falso est. Viam eunti aliquid extremum est; error inmensus est. Retrahe ergo te a vanis, et cum voles scire, quod petes, utrum naturalem habeat an caecam cupiditatem, considera, num possit alicubi consistere. Si longe progresso semper aliquid longius restat, scito id naturale non esse. Vale.

Cast away all those things, if you are wise, or rather that you may be wise, and toward a sound mind strain with a great rush and with all your strength. If there is anything by which you are held back, either disentangle it or cut it through. "My estate delays me," you say; "I want to arrange it so that it can suffice for a man doing nothing, that poverty be no burden to me, nor I to anyone."

Proice omnia ista, si sapis, immo ut sapias, et ad bonam mentem magno cursu ac totis viribus tende. Si quid est, quo teneris, aut expedi aut incide. Moratur, inquis, me res familiaris; sic illam disponere volo, ut sufficere nihil agenti possit, ne aut paupertas mihi oneri sit aut ego alicui.

When you say this, you seem not to know the force and power of that good you are thinking of. You do see the sum of the matter, how much philosophy profits, but you do not yet discern its parts finely enough, nor do you yet know how much it helps us at every turn, how, to use Cicero’s word, it both succors us in the greatest things and comes down into the smallest. Believe me, call her into your counsel; she will persuade you not to sit over your accounts.

Cum hoc dicis, non videris vim ac potentiam eius, de quo cogitas, boni nosse. Et summam quidem rei pervides, quantum philosophia prosit, partes autem nondum satis subtiliter dispicis, necdum scis, quantum ubique nos adiuvet, quemadmodum et in maximis, ut Ciceronis utar verbo, opituletur et in minima descendat. Mihi crede, advoca illam in consilium; suadebit tibi, ne ad calculos sedeas.

Surely this is what you seek, and what you wish to gain by that postponement: that poverty need not be feared by you. But what if it is to be sought? Riches have stood in many a man’s way to philosophizing; poverty is unencumbered, free of care. When the war-trumpet has sounded, it knows that it is not the target; when the cry for water goes up, it asks how to get out, not what to carry out; if there is sailing to be done, the harbor does not roar, nor are the shores disquieted by one man’s retinue. No throng of slaves stands about him, to feed whom the fertility of lands across the sea must be prayed for.

Nempe hoc quaeris et hoc ista dilatione vis consequi, ne tibi paupertas timenda sit; quid si adpetenda est? Multis ad philosophandum obstitere divitiae; paupertas expedita est, secura est. Cum classicum cecinit, scit non se peti; cum aqua conclamata est, quomodo exeat, non quid efferat, quaerit; si navigandum est, non strepitat portus nec unius comitatu inquieta sunt litora. Non circumstat illum turba servorum, ad quos pascendos transmarinarum regionum est optanda fertilitas.

It is easy to feed a few bellies, well trained and desiring nothing but to be filled. Hunger costs little; fastidiousness, much. Poverty is content to satisfy pressing needs. What reason is there, then, to refuse this messmate, whose ways a sound rich man imitates?

Facile est pascere paucos ventres et bene institutos et nihil aliud desiderantes quam inpleri. Parvo fames constat, magno fastidium. Paupertas contenta est desideriis instantibus satis facere.

If you wish to have leisure for the mind, you must be either poor or like a poor man. No study can become wholesome without a care for frugality; and frugality is voluntary poverty. So away with those excuses: "I do not yet have as much as is enough; when I reach that sum, then I will give myself wholly to philosophy." But this very thing, which you put off and provide for after all the rest, is what must be provided before all else; from this one must begin. "I want to provide the means to live on," you say. Provide and learn at once; if anything forbids you to live well, it does not forbid you to die well.

si vis vacare animo, aut pauper sis oportet aut pauperi similis. Non potest studium salutare fieri sine frugalitatis cura; frugalitas autem paupertas voluntaria est. Tolle itaque istas excusationes: Nondum habeo, quantum satis est; si ad illam summam pervenero, tunc me totum philosophiae dabo. Atqui nihil prius quam hoc parandum est, quod tu differs et post cetera paras; ab hoc incipiendum est. Parare, inquis, unde vivam volo. Simul et para et disce; si quid te vetat bene vivere, bene mori non vetat.

There is no reason that poverty should call us back from philosophy, not even destitution. For those hastening to this, even hunger is to be endured. It has been endured by some men under siege, and what other reward had their endurance than not to fall under the victor’s will? How much greater is what is promised here: perpetual freedom, the fear of no one, neither man nor god. To these things one must come even though hungry.

Non est quod nos paupertas a philosophia revocet, ne egestas quidem. Toleranda est enim ad hoc properantibus vel fames. Quam toleravere quidam in obsidionibus, et quod aliud erat illis patientiae praemium quam in arbitrium non cadere victoris? Quanto hic maius est quod promittitur: perpetua libertas, nullius nec hominis nec dei timor. Et quidem vel esurienti ad ista veniendum est.

Armies have borne the lack of everything, have lived on the roots of plants and endured hunger by means foul to name. All this they suffered for a kingdom, and, what makes it the more astonishing, another’s. Will anyone hesitate to bear poverty, to free his mind from its frenzies? So nothing need first be acquired; one may reach philosophy even without travel-money.

Perpessi sunt exercitus inopiam omnium rerum, vixerunt herbarum radicibus et dictu foedis tulerunt famem. Haec omnia passi sunt pro regno, quo magis mireris, alieno. Dubitabit aliquis ferre paupertatem, ut animum furoribus liberet?

Is it so? When you have everything, then you will also wish to have wisdom? Will this be the last furnishing of life, and, so to speak, its appendix? No: if you have anything, philosophize now, for how do you know whether you do not already have too much; if you have nothing, seek this before anything else.

Ita est. Cum omnia habueris, tunc habere et sapientiam voles? Haec erit ultimum vitae instrumentum et, ut ita dicam, additamentum? Tu vero, sive aliquid habes, iam philosophare,—unde enim scis, an iam nimis habeas?—sive nihil, hoc prius quaere quam quicquam.

"But necessities were lacking." First, they cannot be lacking, because nature asks the least, and to nature the wise man fits himself. But if the ultimate necessities have struck, he will long since have gone out from life and ceased to be a trouble to himself. But if there is some small and narrow means by which life can be carried on, he will reckon it a good, and, untroubled and unanxious beyond what is necessary, will pay the belly and the shoulders their due, and will laugh, secure and glad, at the busyness of the rich and the scrambling of those who run after riches, and will say:

At necessaria deerant. Primum deesse non poterunt, quia natura minimum petit, naturae autem se sapiens accommodat. Sed si necessitates ultimae inciderunt, iamdudum exibit e vita et molestus sibi esse desinet. Si vero exiguum erit et angustum, quo possit vita produci, id boni consulet nec ultra necessaria sollicitus aut anxius ventri et scapulis suum reddet et occupationes divitum concursationesque ad divitias euntium securus laetusque ridebit ac dicet:

"Why put yourself off into the long term? Will you wait for the profit of interest, or the gain from merchandise, or the will of some rich old man, when you can become rich on the spot? Wisdom pays out wealth in ready coin: she has given it to whomever she has made it superfluous." These things concern others; you are nearer to the wealthy. Change the age, and you have too much. But what is enough is the same in every age.

Quid in longum ipse te differs? Expectabisne fenoris quaestum aut ex merce conpendium aut tabulas beati senis, cum fieri possis statim dives? Repraesentat opes sapientia, quas cuicumque fecit supervacuas, dedit. Haec ad alios pertinent; tu locupletibus propior es. Saeculum muta, nimis habes. Idem est autem omni saeculo, quod sat est.

I could close the letter at this point, had I not trained you badly. No one can greet the kings of the Parthians without a gift; you may not be bidden farewell for nothing. What of it? I will take a loan from Epicurus: "For many men, the getting of riches was not an end of miseries but a change of them."

Poteram hoc loco epistulam claudere, nisi te male instituissem. Reges Parthorum non potest quisquam salutare sine munere; tibi valedicere non licet gratis. Quid istic? Ab Epicuro mutuum sumam: Multis parasse divitias non finis miseriarum fuit, sed mutatio.

Nor do I wonder at this. For the fault is not in things but in the mind itself. That which had made poverty heavy to us has made riches heavy too. Just as it makes no difference whether you lay a sick man on a wooden bed or a golden one, since wherever you carry him he carries his disease with him, so it makes no difference whether a sick mind is set among riches or in poverty. Its evil follows it. Farewell.

Nec hoc miror. Non est enim in rebus vitium, sed in ipso animo. Illud, quod paupertatem nobis gravem fecerat, et divitias graves fecit. Quemadmodum nihil refert, utrum aegrum in ligneo lecto an in aureo conloces,—quocumque illum transtuleris, morbum secum suum transferet,—sic nihil refert, utrum aeger animus in divitiis an in paupertate ponatur. Malum illum suum sequitur. Vale.

It is the month of December, and the city is at its sweatiest. License has been given to public extravagance. Everything resounds with vast preparations, as if there were any difference between the Saturnalia and the days of doing business. So little difference is there that I think the man was not wrong who said that December used to be a month, but is now the whole year.

December est mensis; cum maxime civitas sudat. Ius luxuriae publicae datum est. Ingenti apparatu sonant omnia, tamquam quicquam inter Saturnalia intersit et dies rerum agendarum. Adeo nihil interest, ut non videatur mihi errasse, qui dixit olim mensem Decembrem fuisse, nunc annum.

If I had you here, I would gladly confer with you on what you think ought to be done: whether nothing should be altered from the daily routine, or whether, so that we not seem at odds with the public manners, we should dine more merrily and put off the toga. For we have changed our dress for the sake of pleasure and the festal days, a thing that used not to be done except in a time of upheaval and public mourning.

Si te hic haberem, libenter tecum conferrem, quid existimares esse faciendum: utrum nihil ex cotidiana consuetudine movendum an, ne dissidere videremur cum publicis moribus, et hilarius cenandum et exuendam togam. Nam quod fieri nisi in tumultu et tristi tempore civitatis non solebat, voluptatis causa ac festorum dierum vestem mutavimus.

If I know you well, in performing the part of an arbiter you would have wished us neither in all things like the capped crowd nor in all things unlike them, unless perhaps it is precisely on these days that the mind must be commanded to abstain from pleasures alone, just when the whole crowd has flung itself upon them; for it takes the surest proof of its own firmness if it neither goes toward, nor is led away by, the things that are alluring and that draw toward luxury.

Si te bene novi, arbitri partibus functus nec per omnia nos similes esse pilleatae turbae voluisses nec per omnia dissimiles; nisi forte his maxime diebus animo imperandum est, ut tunc voluptatibus solus abstineat, cum in illas omnis turba procubuit; certissimum enim argumentum firmitatis suae capit, si ad blanda et in luxuriam trahentia nec it nec abducitur.

This is far braver: to be dry and sober while the people are drunk and vomiting; that is more temperate: not to set oneself apart, nor to be marked out, nor to mingle with all and do the same things, but not in the same way. For one may keep a festal day without luxury.

Hoc multo fortius est, ebrio ac vomitante populo siccum ac sobrium esse, illud temperatius, non excerpere se nec insigniri nec misceri omnibus et eadem, sed non eodem modo, facere. Licet enim sine luxuria agere festum diem.

But it pleases me so well to test the firmness of your mind that, on the precept of great men, I will give you too this precept: set aside a number of days on which, content with the least and cheapest food, with harsh and rough clothing, you may say to yourself, "Is this what was feared?"

Ceterum adeo mihi placet temptare animi tui firmitatem, ut ex praecepto magnorum virorum tibi quoque praecipiam: interponas aliquot dies, quibus contentus minimo ac vilissimo cibo, dura atque horrida veste dicas tibi: Hoc est quod timebatur?

In security itself let the mind prepare itself for hardships, and against the injuries of fortune let it be strengthened amid her benefits. The soldier drills in the midst of peace, throws up a rampart with no enemy present, and tires himself with needless toil so that he may be equal to the necessary kind. The man you would not have tremble in the thing itself, train him before the thing. This is what those men followed who, by imitating poverty every month, came near to destitution, so that they might never take fright at what they had often rehearsed.

In ipsa securitate animus ad difficilia se praeparet et contra iniurias fortunae inter beneficia firmetur. Miles in media pace decurrit, sine ullo hoste vallum iacit et supervacuo labore lassatur, ut sufficere necessario possit. Quem in ipsa re trepidare nolueris, ante rem exerceas. Hoc secuti sunt, qui omnibus mensibus paupertatem imitati prope ad inopiam accesserunt, ne umquam expavescerent quod saepe didicissent.

There is no reason now to suppose I mean the dinners of Timon and the poor men’s cells, and whatever else it is by which the luxury of the rich plays at the boredom of itself: let the pallet be a real one, and the cloak, and the bread hard and coarse. Bear this for three days and four, sometimes for more, so that it be no game but a trial; then, believe me, Lucilius, you will exult, filled for a couple of pennies, and will understand that for security there is no need of fortune; for what is enough for necessity she gives even when she is angry.

Non est nunc quod existimes me dicere Timoneas cenas et pauperum cellas, et quicquid aliud est, per quod luxuria divitiarum taedio ludit; grabatus ille verus sit et sagum et panis durus ac sordidus. Hoc triduo et quatriduo fer, interdum pluribus diebus, ut non lusus sit, sed experimentum; tunc, mihi crede, Lucili, exultabis dipondio satur et intelleges ad securitatem non opus esse fortuna; hoc enim, quod necessitati sat est, dat et irata.

Yet there is no reason for you to think you are doing much. For you will be doing what many thousands of slaves, many thousands of poor men do; give yourself credit on this score, that you will do it uncompelled, that it will be as easy for you to endure that always as to try it sometimes. Let us train at the stake. And so that fortune not catch us unprepared, let poverty become familiar to us. We shall be rich the more securely if we have learned how little a burden it is to be poor.

Non est tamen quare tu multum tibi facere videaris. Facies enim, quod multa milia servorum, multa milia pauperum faciunt; illo nomine te suspice, quod facies non coactus, quod tam facile erit tibi illud pati semper quam aliquando experiri. Exerceamur ad palum. Et ne inparatos fortuna deprehendat, fiat nobis paupertas familiaris. Securius divites erimus, si scierimus, quam non sit grave pauperes esse.

That master of pleasure, Epicurus, kept certain days on which he would grudgingly stave off hunger, to see whether anything was lacking from full and consummate pleasure, or how much was lacking, and whether it was worth making up by great toil. This at least he says in the letters he wrote to Polyaenus in the magistracy of Charinus. And indeed he boasts that he is fed for less than a whole copper, while Metrodorus, who has not yet made so much progress, for a whole one.

Certos habebat dies ille magister voluptatis Epicurus, quibus maligne famem extingueret, visurus, an aliquid deesset ex plena et consummata voluptate, vel quantum deesset et an dignum quod quis magno labore pensaret. Hoc certe in his epistulis ait, quas scripsit Charino magistratu ad Polyaenum. Et quidem gloriatur non toto asse se pasci, Metrodorum, qui nondum tantum profecerit, toto.

In this fare do you think there is satiety? There is even pleasure, and pleasure not of that light and fleeting kind, needing to be refreshed again and again, but stable and sure. For water and barley-meal, or a scrap of barley bread, is no delightful thing; but it is the highest pleasure to be able to take pleasure even from these, and to have brought oneself down to that which no unfairness of fortune can snatch away.

In hoc tu victu saturitatem putas esse? Et voluptas est. Voluptas autem non illa levis et fugax et subinde reficienda, sed stabilis et certa. Non enim iucunda res est aqua et polenta aut frustum hordeacei panis, sed summa voluptas est posse capere etiam ex his voluptatem et ad id se deduxisse, quod eripere nulla fortunae iniquitas possit.

The prison’s rations are more liberal; men set apart for capital punishment are not fed so meagerly by the one who is to kill them. How great is the greatness of mind that comes down of its own will to that which need not be feared even by those condemned to the extreme penalty! This is to forestall the weapons of fortune.

Liberaliora alimenta sunt carceris, sepositos ad capitale supplicium non tam anguste, qui occisurus est, pascit Quanta est animi magnitudo ad id sua sponte descendere, quod ne ad extrema quidem decretis timendum sit! Hoc est praeoccupare tela fortunae.

"Dare, my guest, to despise wealth, and shape yourself, you too, worthy of the god."

No one else is worthy of a god than he who has despised wealth. The possession of it I do not forbid you, but I want to bring it about that you possess it undaunted; which you will attain in one way only: if you persuade yourself that you will live happily even without it, and if you always look on it as about to depart.

Nemo alius est deo dignus quam qui opes contempsit. Quarum possessionem tibi non interdico, sed efficere volo, ut illas intrepide possideas; quod uno consequeris modo, si te etiam sine illis beate victurum persuaseris tibi, si illas tamquam exituras semper aspexeris.

But now let us begin to fold up the letter. "First," you say, "pay back what you owe." I will refer you to Epicurus; the payment will be made by him: "Excessive anger begets madness." How true this is you must needs know, since you have had both a slave and an enemy.

Sed iam incipiamus epistulam conplicare. Prius, inquis, redde quod debes. Delegabo te ad Epicurum; ab illo fiet numeratio: Inmodica ira gignit insaniam. Hoc quam verum sit, necesse est scias, cum habueris et servum et inimicum.

Against all persons this passion blazes up; it is born as much from love as from hatred, no less amid serious matters than amid play and jest. Nor does it matter from how great a cause it is born, but into what kind of mind it comes. So fire makes no difference how great it is, but where it falls. For solid things have not caught even the greatest fire; while things dry and easy to seize foster even a spark into a blaze. So it is, my Lucilius: the outcome of a huge anger is madness, and therefore anger is to be avoided not for moderation’s sake but for sanity’s. Farewell.

In omnes personas hic exardescit affectus; tam ex amore nascitur quam ex odio, non minus inter seria quam inter lusus et iocos. Nec interest, ex quam magna causa nascatur, sed in qualem perveniat animum. Sic ignis non refert quam magnus, sed quo incidat. Nam etiam maximum solida non receperunt; rursus arida et corripi facilia scintillam quoque fovent usque in incendium. Ita est, mi Lucili, ingentis irae exitus furor est, et ideo ira vitanda est non moderationis causa, sed sanitatis. Vale.

I exult whenever I receive your letters. For they fill me with good hope, and now they do not merely promise concerning you, but go surety for you. Do just so, I beg and beseech you. For what better thing have I to ask of a friend than what I am going to ask for his own sake? If you can, withdraw yourself from those occupations; if not, tear yourself away. We have scattered enough time; let us begin, in old age, to pack up our gear.

Exulto, quotiens epistulas tuas accipio. Inplent enim me bona spe et iam non promittunt de te, sed spondent. Ita fac, oro atque obsecro. Quid enim habeo melius, quod amicum rogem, quam quod pro ipso rogaturus sum? Si potes, subduc te istis occupationibus; si minus, eripe. Satis multum temporis sparsimus; incipiamus vasa in senectute colligere.

Is there anything to be envied in it? We have lived in the strait; let us die in the harbor. Nor would I advise you to seek a name from your leisure, which you ought neither to flaunt nor to hide. For never will I drive you so far, in condemning the frenzy of the human race, as to want some lurking-place and oblivion prepared for you; manage it so that your leisure is not conspicuous, yet is in plain view.

Numquid invidiosum est? In freto viximus, moriamur in portu. Neque ego suaserim tibi nomen ex otio petere, quod nec iactare debes nec abscondere. Numquam enim usque eo te abigam generis humani furore damnato, ut latebram tibi aliquam parari et oblivionem velim; id age, ut otium tuum non emineat, sed appareat.

Then those whose plans are still whole and at their beginning will see to it for themselves whether they wish to pass their life through the dark; for you that choice is not free. The vigor of your talent, the elegance of your writings, your bright and noble friendships have brought you out into the open. Already renown has seized you. Though you plunge into the depths and bury yourself utterly, still your earlier deeds will point you out.

Deinde videbunt de isto, quibus integra sunt et prima consilia, an velint vitam per obscurum transmittere; tibi liberum non est. In medium te protulit ingenii vigor, scriptorum elegantia, clarae et nobiles amicitiae. Iam notitia te invasit. Ut in extrema mergaris ac penitus recondaris, tamen priora monstrabunt.

You cannot have darkness; much of your former light will follow wherever you flee. You can lay claim to rest without anyone’s hatred, without longing or the bite of your own mind. For what will you leave that you could think of as left behind against your will? Your clients? Not one of whom follows you yourself, but something out of you. Friendship was once sought; now it is plunder. Abandoned old men will change their wills; the morning caller will move to another doorstep. A great thing cannot be had at a small price; reckon up whether you would rather leave yourself, or something of your own.

Tenebras habere non potes; sequetur, quocumque fugeris, multum pristinae lucis.

Would indeed that it had fallen to you to grow old within the measure of your birth, and that fortune had not flung you into the deep! A headlong prosperity has carried you far from the sight of a wholesome life, a province and a procuratorship and whatever is promised by such things. Then greater offices will take you up, and out of some, others.

Utinam quidem tibi senescere contigisset intra natalium tuorum modum, nec te in altum fortuna misisset! Tulit te longe a conspectu vitae salubris rapida felicitas, provincia et procuratio, et quicquid ab istis promittitur; maiora deinde officia te excipient et ex aliis alia.

What will be the end? What are you waiting for, until you cease to have anything to desire? That time will never come. Just as we say there is a chain of causes from which fate is woven, so there is one of desires: one is born from the end of another. You have been let down into that kind of life which will never of itself make an end of your miseries and your servitude. Draw your neck, worn by the yoke, out from under it; better that it be cut through once than forever pressed down.

Quis exitus erit? Quid expectas, donec desinas habere, quod cupias? Numquam erit id tempus. Qualem dicimus seriem esse causarum, ex quibus nectitur fatum, talem esse cupiditatum; altera ex fine alterius nascitur. In eam demissus es vitam, quae numquam tibi terminum miseriarum ac servitutis ipsa factura sit. Subduc cervicem iugo tritam; semel illam incidi quam semper premi satius est.

If you betake yourself to private things, all will be smaller, but they will fill you to the brim; whereas now things most numerous and heaped on from every side do not satisfy. But which do you prefer, satiety out of want, or hunger amid plenty? Prosperity is both greedy and exposed to another’s greed. As long as nothing is enough for you, you yourself will not be enough for others.

Si te ad privata rettuleris, minora erunt omnia, sed affatim implebunt; at nunc plurima et undique ingesta non satiant. Utrum autem mavis ex inopia saturitatem an in copia famem? et avida felicitas est et alienae aviditati exposita. Quamdiu tibi satis nihil fuerit, ipse aliis non eris.

"How," you say, "shall I get out?" By any means at all. Consider how many things you have tried rashly for money, how many laboriously for honor; something must be dared for leisure too, or else you must grow old amid that anxiety of procuratorships and then of city offices, in an uproar and ever-new billows, which no modesty, no quiet of life, has managed to escape. For what does it matter whether you wish to rest? Your fortune does not wish it. And what if you let it grow even now? As much as is added to your successes, will be added to your fears.

Quomodo, inquis, exibo? Utcumque. Cogita, quam multa temere pro pecunia, quam multa laboriose pro honore temptaveris; aliquid et pro otio audendum est, aut in ista sollicitudine procurationum et deinde urbanorum officiorum senescendum in tumultu ac semper novis fluctibus, quos effugere nulla modestia, nulla vitae quiete contigit. Quid enim ad rem pertinet, an tu quiescere velis? Fortuna tua non vult. Quid si illi etiam nunc permiseris crescere? Quantum ad successus accesserit, accedet ad metus.

I want at this point to report to you a saying of Maecenas, who spoke the truth on the very summit: "The height itself thunderstrikes the topmost things." If you ask in what book he said it, in the one entitled Prometheus. He meant to say: the topmost things it holds thunderstruck. Is any power, then, worth so much that your talk should be so drunken? A man of talent he was, destined to give a great example of Roman eloquence, had prosperity not unstrung him, or rather unmanned him. This end awaits you, unless you now draw in your sails, unless, as he wished too late, you hug the shore.

Volo tibi hoc loco referre dictum Maecenatis vera in ipso culmine elocuti: Ipsa enim altitudo attonat summa. Si quaeris, in quo libro dixerit; in eo, qui Prometheus inscribitur. Hoc voluit dicere, attonita habet summa. Est ergo tanti ulla potentia, ut sit tibi tam ebrius sermo? Ingeniosus ille vir fuit, magnum exemplum Romanae eloquentiae daturus, nisi illum enervasset felicitas, immo castrasset. Hic te exitus manet, nisi iam contrahes vela, nisi, quod ille sero voluit, terram leges.

I could have squared the account with you by this saying of Maecenas. But you will pick a quarrel with me, if I know you, and will not want to take what I owe in coin that is rough and counterfeit. As the matter stands, the loan must be made from Epicurus: "You must consider," he says, "with whom you eat and drink, before you consider what you eat and drink. For a banquet of meat without a friend is the life of a lion and a wolf."

Poteram tecum hac Maecenatis sententia parem facere rationem. Sed movebis mihi controversiam, si novi te, nec voles quod debeo in aspero et inprobo accipere. Ut se res habet, ab Epicuro versura facienda est. Ante, inquit, circumspiciendum est, cum quibus edas et bibas, quam quid edas e bibas. Nam sine amico visceratio leonis ac lupi vita est.

This will not fall to you unless you withdraw; otherwise you will have for guests those whom the nomenclator has sorted out from the throng of callers. But he is wrong who seeks a friend in the entrance-hall and tests him at the table. No greater evil has the busy man, beset by his own goods, than that he thinks those men his friends to whom he himself is none, than that he judges his benefits effective for winning friends, when some men, the more they owe, the more they hate. A light debt makes a debtor, a heavy one an enemy.

Hoc non continget tibi, nisi secesseris; alioqui habebis convivas, quos ex turba salutantium nomenclator digesserit. Errat autem, qui amicum in atrio quaerit, in convivio probat. Nullum habet maius malum occupatus homo et bonis suis obsessus, quam quod amicos sibi putat, quibus ipse non est, quod beneficia sua efficacia iudicat ad conciliandos amicos, cum quidam, quo plus debent, magis oderint. Leve aes alienum debitorem facit, grave inimicum.

What then? Do benefits not procure friendships? They do, if it has been allowed to choose those who will receive them, if they are well placed, not scattered. So, while you are beginning to be your own master, meanwhile use this counsel of the wise: that you reckon it more to the point who, rather than what, a man has received. Farewell.

Quid ergo? Beneficia non parant amicitias? Parant, si accepturos licuit eligere, si conlocata, non sparsa sunt.

If you are well, and think yourself worthy at last to become your own, I rejoice. For it will be my glory if I have dragged you out of that place where you toss with no hope of escape. But this I ask and urge of you, my Lucilius: let philosophy sink into your innermost heart, and take the proof of your progress not from speech nor from writing, but from firmness of mind and the lessening of desires; prove your words by deeds.

Si vales et te dignum putas, qui aliquando fias tuus, gaudeo. Mea enim gloria erit, si te istinc, ubi sine spe exeundi fluctuaris, extraxero. Illud autem te, mi Lucili, rogo atque hortor, ut philosophiam in praecordia ima demittas et experimentum profectus tui capias non oratione nec scripto, sed animi firmitate, cupiditatum deminutione; verba rebus proba.

One aim belongs to those who declaim and angle for the applause of the ring of listeners, another to those who hold the ears of the young and the idle with various or fluent disputation: philosophy teaches us to act, not to speak, and demands this, that each man live by its law, that life not be at odds with speech, that life itself within itself be one, of a single color in all its actions, without discord. This is the chief duty of wisdom and its chief mark: that deeds accord with words, that a man be everywhere equal to himself and one and the same. Who will furnish this? Few, yet some. For it is difficult; nor do I say that the wise man will always go at one pace, but along one road.

Aliud propositum est declamantibus et adsensionem coronae captantibus, aliud his, qui iuvenum et otiosorum aures disputatione varia aut volubili detinent; facere docet philosophia, non dicere, et hoc exigit, ut ad legem suam quisque vivat, ne orationi vita dissentiat, ut ipsa intra se vita unius sit omnium actionum sine dissensione coloris. Maximum hoc est et officium sapientiae et indicium, ut verbis opera concordent, ut ipse ubique par sibi idemque sit.

So watch yourself, whether your clothing and your house are at odds, whether you are lavish toward yourself and shabby toward your people, whether you dine frugally and build extravagantly. Take, once for all, a single rule by which to live, and level your whole life to it. Some men draw themselves in at home and spread and stretch themselves abroad; this discrepancy is a fault and the sign of a wavering mind that does not yet hold its own tenor.

Observa te itaque, numquid vestis tua domusque dissentiant, numquid in te liberalis sis, in tuos sordidus, numquid cenes frugaliter, aedifices luxuriose. Unam semel ad quam vivas regulam prende et ad hanc omnem vitam tuam exaequa. Quidam se domi contrahunt, dilatant foris et extendunt; vitium est haec diversitas et signum vacillantis animi ac nondum habentis tenorem suum.

Even now I will tell you where that inconstancy and unlikeness of deeds and plans comes from: no one sets before himself what he wants, or, if he has set it, does not persevere in it, but leaps away; and he not only changes but goes back and rolls round again into the things he had deserted and condemned.

Etiamnunc dicam, unde sit ista inconstantia et dissimilitudo rerum consiliorumque: nemo proponit sibi, quid velit, nec si proposuit, perseverat in eo, sed transilit; nec tantum mutat, sed redit et in ea, quae deseruit ac damnavit, revolvitur.

And so, to leave aside the old definitions of wisdom and embrace the whole measure of human life, I can be content with this: What is wisdom? Always to want the same thing and to refuse the same thing. You need not add that little proviso, that what you want be right; for the same thing cannot always please anyone unless it is right.

Itaque ut relinquam definitiones sapientiae veteres et totum conplectar humanae vitae modum, hoc possum contentus esse: Quid est sapientia? Semper idem velle atque idem nolle. Licet illam exceptiunculam non adicias, ut rectum sit, quod velis; non potest enim cuiquam idem semper placere nisi rectum.

So men do not know what they want, except at the very moment they want it; on the whole, no one’s willing or refusing is settled. Their judgment varies daily and is turned to its opposite, and for most men life is carried on as a game. Press on, then, with what you have begun, and perhaps you will be brought through either to the summit, or to a point which you alone understand is not yet the summit.

Nesciunt ergo homines, quid velint, nisi illo momento, quo volunt; in totum nulli velle aut nolle decretum est. Variatur cotidie iudicium et in contrarium vertitur ac plerisque agitur vita per lusum. Preme ergo quod coepisti, et fortasse perduceris aut ad summum aut eo, quod summum nondum esse solus intellegas.

"What will become," you say, "of this crowd of dependents, with no estate to keep them?" That crowd, when it has ceased to be fed by you, will feed itself, or you will come to know by poverty’s gift what you cannot know by your own bounty. It will retain your true and certain friends; whoever was following not you but something else will depart. But is poverty not to be loved for this one thing, that it shows by whom you are loved? Oh, when will that day come on which no one lies to do you honor!

Quid fiet, inquis, huic turbae familiarium sine re familiari? Turba ista cum a te pasci desierit, ipsa se pascet, aut quod tu beneficio tuo non potes scire, paupertatis scies. Illa veros certosque amicos retinebit; discedet quisquis non te, sed aliud sequebatur. Non est autem vel ob hoc unum amanda paupertas, quod a quibus ameris ostendet? O quando ille veniet dies, quo nemo in honorem tuum mentiatur!

Hither, then, let your thoughts strain, this care for, this pray for, ready to remit all your other prayers to the god: that you be content with your very self and with the goods born out of yourself. What happiness can be nearer? Reduce yourself to small things, from which you cannot fall; and to make you do it the more gladly, the tribute of this letter, which I will hand over at once, will bear on this point.

Huc ergo cogitationes tuae tendant, hoc cura, hoc opta, omnia alia vota deo remissurus, ut contentus sis temet ipso et ex te nascentibus bonis. Quae potest esse felicitas propior? Redige te ad parva, ex quibus cadere non possis, idque ut libentius facias, ad hoc pertinebit tributum huius epistulae, quod statim conferam.

Envy me though you may, even now Epicurus gladly pays out on my behalf: "Your speech," believe me, "will seem more magnificent on a cot and in rags." For those things will not merely be said but proved. I at any rate hear differently the words our Demetrius speaks, when I have seen him lying bare, with how much less than straw beneath him; he is no teacher of the truth but a witness of it.

Invideas licet, etiam nunc libenter pro me dependet Epicurus. Magnificentior, mihi crede, sermo tuus in grabato videbitur et in panno. Non enim dicentur tantum illa, sed probabuntur. Ego certe aliter audio, quae dicit Demetrius noster, cum illum vidi nudum, quanto minus quam stramentis, incubantem; non praeceptor veri, sed testis est.

What then? May one not despise riches set in one’s lap? Why not? He too is of a vast mind who, with riches poured round him, having long and much marveled that they came to him, laughs, and hears that they are his rather than feels it. It is much not to be corrupted by the close company of riches; great is the man who in riches is poor.

Quid ergo? Non licet divitias in sinu positas contemnere? Quidni liceat? Et ille ingentis animi est, qui illas circumfusas sibi, multum diuque miratus, quod ad se venerint, ridet suasque audit magis esse quam sentit. Multum est non corrumpi divitiarum contubernio; magnus ille, qui in divitiis pauper est.

"I do not know," you say, "how that man will bear poverty if he falls into it." Nor do I, Epicurus, know whether that poor man of yours will despise riches if he falls into them; and so in both the mind must be weighed, and one must look whether the one is indulging poverty, or the other not indulging riches. Otherwise a cot or rags is a weak proof of good will, unless it has appeared that a man suffers them not from necessity but from preference.

Nescio, inquis, quomodo paupertatem iste laturus sit, si in illam inciderit. Nec ego, Epicure, an tuus iste pauper contempturus sit divitias, si in illas inciderit; itaque in utroque mens aestimanda est inspiciendumque, an ille paupertati indulgeat, an hic divitiis non indulgeat. Alioquin leve argumentum est bonae voluntatis grabatus aut pannus, nisi apparuit aliquem illa non necessitate pati, sed malle.

But it is the mark of a great nature not to hurry toward such things as though they were better, but to prepare for them as for things easy. And they are easy, Lucilius; but when you come to them after long meditation, they are pleasant too; for there is in them the thing without which nothing is pleasant: security.

Ceterum magnae indolis est ad ista non properare tamquam meliora, sed praeparari tamquam ad facilia. Et sunt, Lucili, facilia; cum vero multo ante meditatus accesseris, iucunda quoque; inest enim illis, sine qua nihil est iucundum, securitas.

So I judge it necessary to do what I wrote that great men have often done: to set aside some days on which we train ourselves by an imaginary poverty for the real one. This must be done all the more because we are soaked through with delights and judge everything hard and difficult. Rather the mind must be roused from sleep and pinched and reminded that nature has appointed us the least. No one is born rich. Whoever comes out into the light is bidden to be content with milk and a rag; from these beginnings kingdoms do not hold us. Farewell.

Necessarium ergo iudico, id quod tibi scripsi magnos viros saepe fecisse: aliquos dies interponere, quibus nos imaginaria paupertate exerceamus ad veram. Quod eo magis faciendum est, quod deliciis permaduimus et omnia dura ac difficilia iudicamus. Potius excitandus e somno et vellicandus est animus admonendusque naturam nobis minimum constituisse. Nemo nascitur dives. Quisquis exit in lucem, iussus est lacte et panno esse contentus; ab his initiis nos regna non capiunt. Vale.

Do you judge that your business is with those people about whom you had written? Your greatest business is with yourself; you are your own burden. You do not know what you want; you approve the honorable better than you follow it; you see where happiness is set, but you do not dare to reach it. And what it is that hinders you, since you yourself discern it too little, I will tell you. You think those things great which you are about to leave, and when you have set before yourself that security to which you are to cross over, the glitter of this life, from which you are to withdraw, holds you back, as though you would fall into something squalid and dark.

Cum istis tibi esse negotium iudicas, de quibus scripseras? Maximum negotium tecum habes; tu tibi molestus es. Quid velis nescis; melius probas honesta quam sequeris; vides, ubi sit posita felicitas, sed ad illam pervenire non audes. Quid sit autem, quod te inpediat, quia parum ipse dispicis, dicam.

You are wrong, Lucilius; from this life one climbs up to that. What the difference is between a sheen and a light, since the one has a sure source and the other gleams with another’s, that is the difference between this life and that: this one is struck by a brightness coming from without, and whoever stands in its way will at once cast a thick shadow upon it; that one is bright with its own light. Your studies will make you renowned and noble.

Erras, Lucili; ex hac vita ad illam adscenditur. Quod interest inter splendorem et lucem, cum haec certam originem habeat ac suam ille niteat alieno, hoc inter hanc vitam et illam; haec fulgore extrinsecus veniente percussa est, crassam illi statim umbram faciet quisquis obstiterit; illa suo lumine inlustris est.

I will cite an example of Epicurus. When he was writing to Idomeneus and calling him back from a showy life to a faithful and stable glory, Idomeneus then a minister of rigid power and handling great affairs, he said: "If glory touches you, my letters will make you better known than all those things which you court and for the sake of which you are courted."

Exempium exemplum Epicuri referam. Cum Idomeneo scriberet et illum a vita speciosa ad fidelem stabilemque gloriam revocaret, rigidae tunc potentiae ministrum et magna tractantem: Si gloria, inquit, tangeris, notiorem te epistulae meae facient quam omnia ista, quae colis et propter quae coleris.

Did he then lie? Who would know Idomeneus, had not Epicurus engraved him in his letters? All those grandees and satraps, and the king himself from whom Idomeneus’s title was sought, a deep oblivion has buried. Cicero’s letters do not allow the name of Atticus to perish. It would have profited him nothing to have Agrippa for a son-in-law, and Tiberius for the husband of his granddaughter, and Drusus Caesar for a great-grandson; amid such great names he would be passed over in silence, had not Cicero attached him to himself.

Numquid ergo mentitus est? Quis Idomenea nosset, nisi Epicurus illum litteris suis incidisset? Omnes illos megistanas et satrapas et regem ipsum, ex quo Idomenei titulus petebatur, oblivio alta suppressit. Nomen Attici perire Ciceronis epistulae non sinunt. Nihil illi profuisset gener Agrippa et Tiberius progener et Drusus Caesar pronepos; inter tam magna nomina taceretur, nisi sibi Cicero illum adplicuisset.

"Happy pair! If my songs have any power, / no day shall ever take you from the memory of the ages, / while the house of Aeneas dwells by the Capitol’s unmoving rock, / and a Roman father holds the empire."

Whomever fortune has brought into the open, whoever have been the limbs and parts of another’s power, their favor flourished, their house was thronged, while they themselves stood; after them, the memory quickly failed. But the esteem of genius grows, and honor is paid not only to the men themselves, but whatever has clung to their memory is taken up as well.

Quoscumque in medium fortuna protulit, quicumque membra ac partes alienae potentiae fuerunt, horum gratia viguit, domus frequentata est, dum ipsi steterunt; post ipsos cito memoria defecit. Ingeniorum crescit dignatio nec ipsis tantum honor habetur, sed quicquid illorum memoriae adhaesit, excipitur.

That Idomeneus may not have come into my letter for nothing, he himself shall redeem it from his own funds. It was to him that Epicurus wrote that noble sentence by which he urges him to make Pythocles rich by no public or doubtful path: "If you wish," he says, "to make Pythocles rich, you must not add to his money but subtract from his desire."

Ne gratis Idomeneus in epistulam meam venerit) ipse eam de suo redimet. Ad hunc Epicurus illam nobilem sententiam scripsit, qua hortatur, ut Pythoclea locupletem non publica nec ancipiti via faciat. Si vis, inquit, Pythoclea divitem facere, non pecuniae adiciendum, sed cupiditati detrahendum est.

That sentence is too plain to need interpreting, and too well said to need helping. This one thing I warn you of: do not think it was said only about riches; wherever you transfer it, it will hold the same. If you wish to make Pythocles honorable, you must not add to his honors but subtract from his desires. If you wish Pythocles to be in perpetual pleasure, you must not add to his pleasures but subtract from his desires; if you wish to make Pythocles old and to fill out his life, you must not add to his years but subtract from his desires.

Et apertior ista sententia est quam ut interpretanda sit, et disertior quam ut adiuvanda. Hoc unum te admoneo, ne istud tantum existimes de divitiis dictum; quocumque transtuleris, idem poterit. Si vis Pythoclea honestum facere, non honoribus adiciendum est, sed cupiditatibus detrahendum. Si vis Pythoclea esse in perpetua voluptate, non voluptatibus adiciendum est, sed cupiditatibus detrahendum; si vis Pythoclea senem facere et inplere vitam, non annis adiciendum est, sed cupiditatibus detrahendum.

There is no reason for you to judge these utterances to be Epicurus’s; they are common property. What is usually done in the senate I think should be done in philosophy too: when someone has moved a motion that pleases me in part, I bid him divide the question and I follow what I approve. I recall the excellent sayings of Epicurus the more gladly so that I may prove, to those men who take refuge with him led on by a bad hope, who think they will have in him a screen for their vices, that wherever they go they must live honorably.

Has voces non est quod Epicuri esse iudices; publicae sunt. Quod fieri in senatu solet, faciendum ego in philosophia quoque existimo: cum censuit aliquis, quod ex parte mihi placeat, iubeo illum dividere sententiam et sequor, quod probo. Eo libentius Epicuri egregia dicta commemoro, ut istis, qui ad illum confugiunt spe mala inducti, qui velamentum ipsos vitiorum suorum habituros existimant, probem quocumque ierint honeste esse vivendum.

"Guest, here you will do well to stay; here the highest good is pleasure."

I am speaking with you about those desires that admit no consolation, to which something must be given so that they cease. For about those extraordinary ones, which one may put off, may chastise and crush, I will give this one reminder: that pleasure is natural, not necessary; you owe it nothing; whatever you spend on it is voluntary. The belly does not listen to precepts; it demands, it duns. Yet it is no troublesome creditor; it is dismissed for a little, provided you give it what you owe, not what you can.

De his tecum desideriis loquor, quae consolationem non recipiunt, quibus dandum est aliquid, ut desinant. Nam de illis extraordinariis, quae licet differre, licet castigare et opprimere, hoc unum commonefaciam: ista voluptas naturalis est, non necessaria; huic nihil debes; si quid inpendis, voluntarium est. Venter praecepta non audit; poscit, appellat. Non est tamen molestus creditor; parvo dimittitur, si modo das illi, quod debes, non quod potes. Vale.

Now you understand that you must be led out of those occupations, showy and evil. But you ask how you can attain that. Some things are shown only by one who is present. The physician cannot by letters choose the time for food or the bath; the vein must be touched. There is an old proverb that the gladiator takes his counsel in the arena; something the opponent’s face, something the moved hand, something the very leaning of the body warns the watcher.

Iam intellegis educendum esse te ex istis occupationibus speciosis et malis. Sed quo modo id consequi possis quaeris. Quaedam non nisi a praesente monstrantur. Non potest medicus per epistulas cibi aut balinei tempus eligere; vena tangenda est. Vetus proverbium est gladiatorem in harena capere consilium; aliquid adversarii vultus, aliquid manus mota, aliquid ipsa inclinatio corporis intuentem monet.

What is usually done, what ought to be done, can be both enjoined and written in general; such counsel is given not only to the absent but to posterity. But that other thing, when it ought to be done or how, no one will advise from afar; one must deliberate with the facts themselves.

Quid fieri soleat, quid oporteat, in universum et mandari potest et scribi; tale consilium non tantum absentibus, etiam posteris datur. Illud alterum, quando fieri debeat aut quemadmodum, ex longinquo nemo suadebit, cum rebus ipsis deliberandum est.

It is the part not only of a man present but of a watchful one to mark the opportunity as it hurries past. So look about you for it, and if you see it, seize it, and with your whole rush, with all your strength, work to strip yourself of those duties. And do attend to the verdict I bring: I judge that you must go out either from that life or from life itself. But this same thing I also think: that you must go by a gentle road, so that what you have ill entangled you should rather untie than break off, provided that, if there shall be no other way of untying, you break it off all the same. No one is so timid that he would rather always hang than once fall.

Non tantum praesentis, sed vigilantis est occasionem observare properantem. Itaque hanc circumspice, hanc si videris, prende et toto impetu, totis viribus id age, ut te istis officiis exuas.

Meanwhile, which is the first thing, do not hinder yourself. Be content with the business into which you have come down, or, as you would rather it seem, into which you have fallen. There is no reason to strive after things further off; or else you will lose your excuse and it will appear that you did not fall in. For those things that are usually said are false: "I could not do otherwise. What if I was unwilling? It was necessary." It is necessary for no one to follow prosperity at a run; there is something to be said for at least halting, even if not resisting, and not pressing on while fortune carries you forward.

Interim, quod primum est, impedire te noli. Contentus esto negotiis, in quae descendisti, vel quod videri mavis, incidisti. Non est quod ad ulteriora nitaris; aut perdes excusationem et apparebit te non incidisse. Ista enim, quae dici solent, falsa sunt: Non potui aliter. Quid, si nollem? Necesse erat. Nulli necesse est felicitatem cursu sequi; est aliquid, etiam si non repugnare, subsistere nec instare fortunae ferenti.

Would you take offense if I not only come into counsel myself but call others in, and indeed wiser men than I am, to whom I am wont to refer whenever I deliberate on anything? Read the letter of Epicurus bearing on this matter, the one inscribed to Idomeneus, whom he asks to flee as fast as he can and to hurry, before some greater force intervenes and takes away the freedom of withdrawing.

Numquid offenderis, si in consilium non venio tantum, sed advoco, et quidem prudentiores quam ipse sum, ad quos soleo deferre, si quid delibero? Epicuri epistulam ad hanc rem pertinentem lege, Idomeneo quae inscribitur, quem rogat, ut quantum potest fugiat et properet, antequam aliqua vis maior interveniat et auferat libertatem recedendi.

Yet the same man adds that nothing should be attempted except when it can be attempted aptly and in season. But when that long-watched-for time has come, he says one must leap out. He forbids the man who is thinking of flight to doze, and hopes for a saving way out even from the hardest straits, if we neither hurry before the time nor hang back when it comes.

Idem tamen subicit nihil esse temptandum, nisi cum apte poterit tempestiveque temptari. Sed cum illud tempus captatum diu venerit, exiliendum ait. Dormitare de fuga cogitantem vetat et sperat salutarem etiam ex difficillimis exitum, si nec properemus ante tempus nec cessemus in tempore.

Now, I think, you ask for the Stoic verdict too. There is no reason for anyone to defame them to you for rashness; they are more cautious than they are bold. Perhaps you expect them to say this to you: "It is shameful to yield to the load. Wrestle with the duty you have once taken up. He is no brave and strenuous man who flees toil, unless his spirit grows by the very difficulty of things."

Puto, nunc et Stoicam sententiam quaeris. Non est quod quisquam illos apud te temeritatis infamet; cautiores quam fortiores sunt. Expectas forsitan, ut tibi haec dicant: Turpe est cedere oneri. Luctare cum officio, quod semel recepisti. Non est vir fortis ac strenuus qui laborem fugit, nisi crescit illi animus ipsa rerum difficultate.

These things will be said to you, if perseverance has its reward, if nothing unworthy of a good man must be done or suffered; otherwise he will not wear himself out in squalid and degrading labor, nor be in business for business’s sake. Nor even will he do what you suppose he would, to be entangled in ambitious affairs and forever bear their surge. But when he sees the things in which he was wallowing to be heavy, uncertain, doubtful, he will draw back his foot; he will not turn his back, but will withdraw little by little into safety.

Dicentur tibi ista, si operae pretium habebit perseverantia, si nihil indignum bono viro faciendum patiendumve erit; alioqui sordido se et contumelioso labore non conteret nec in negotiis erit negotii causa. Ne illud quidem, quod existimas facturum eum, faciet, ut ambitiosis rebus inplicitus semper aestus earum ferat. Sed cum viderit gravia, in quibus volutabatur, incerta, ancipitia, referet pedem, non vertet terga, sed sensim recedet in tutum.

But it is easy, my Lucilius, to escape occupations, if you have despised the prizes of occupation. Those are the things that delay and detain us: "What then? Shall I leave such great hopes? Shall I depart from the very harvest? Will my side be bare, my litter unattended, my hall empty?" From these things, then, men withdraw unwilling, and love the wage of their miseries while they curse the miseries themselves.

Facile est autem, mi Lucili, occupationes evadere, si occupationum pretia contempseris. Illa sunt, quae nos morantur et detinent: Quid ergo? Tam magnas spes relinquam? Ab ipsa messe discedam? Nudum erit latus, incomitata lectica, atrium vacuum?

They complain of their ambition as of a mistress; that is, if you look at their true feeling, they do not hate it but quarrel with it. Sift those men who bewail what they have desired, and talk of fleeing the things they cannot do without; you will see that their lingering is voluntary in a matter they say they bear with grief and misery.

Sic de ambitione quomodo de amica queruntur; id est, si verum adfectum eorum inspicias, non oderunt, sed litigant. Excute istos, qui, quae cupiere, deplorant et de earum rerum locuntur fuga, quibus carere non possunt; videbis voluntariam esse illis in eo moram, quod aegre ferre ipsos et misere locuntur.

So it is, Lucilius: servitude holds few, but more hold onto their servitude. But if it is in your mind to lay it down, and freedom has pleased you in good faith, and you ask for support in this one thing, that it may fall to you to do it without perpetual anxiety, why should not the whole cohort of the Stoics approve you? All the Zenos and Chrysippuses will urge moderate, honorable things, things that are your own.

Ita est, Lucili; paucos servitus, plures servitutem tenent.

But if you hang back on this account, to look around at how much you may carry with you and with how great a sum you may furnish your leisure, you will never find a way out. No one swims free with his baggage. Emerge to a better life, with the gods favorable, but not in the way they are favorable to those men to whom, with a kind and gracious face, they have granted magnificent evils, excused on this one ground, that the things which burn, which torture, were given to men who prayed for them.

Sed si propter hoc tergiversaris, ut circumspicias, quantum feras tecum et quam magna pecunia instruas otium, numquam exitum invenies. Nemo cum sarcinis enatat. Emerge ad meliorem vitam propitiis dis, sed non sic, quomodo istis propitii sunt, quibus bono ac benigno vultu mala magnifica tribuerunt, ad hoc unum excusati, quod ista, quae urunt, quae excruciant, optantibus data sunt.

I was already pressing the seal on the letter; it must be unsealed, so that it may come to you with its customary little gift and carry some magnificent utterance with it; and look, one occurs to me, I do not know whether truer or more eloquent. "Whose?" you say. Epicurus’s; for I am still laying claim to other men’s baggage.

Iam inprimebam epistulae signum; resolvenda est, ut cum sollemni ad te munusculo veniat et aliquam magnificam vocem ferat secum, et occurrit mihi ecce nescio utrum verior an eloquentior. Cuius? inquis; Epicuri, adhuc enim alienas sarcinas adsero;

"No one departs from life otherwise than as if he had just entered it." Seize whomever you wish, young, old, middle-aged: you will find him equally afraid of death, equally ignorant of life. No one has anything finished, for we have put off our affairs into the future. Nothing in that saying delights me more than that infancy is cast in the teeth of the old.

Nemo non ita exit e vita, tamquam modo intraverit. Quemcumque vis occupa, adulescentem senem medium; invenies aeque timidum mortis, aeque inscium vitae. Nemo quicquam habet facti, in futurum enim nostra distulimus. Nihil me magis in ista voce delectat quam quod exprobratur senibus infantia.

"No one," he says, "departs from life otherwise than as one just born." It is false: we die worse than we are born. That is our fault, not nature’s. She has the right to complain of us and to say: "What is this? I begot you without desires, without fears, without superstition, without treachery and the other plagues; go out as you came in."

Nemo, inquit, aliter quam qui modo natus est exit e vita. Falsum est; peiores morimur quam nascimur. Nostrum istud, non naturae vitium est. Illa nobiscum queri debet et dicere: Quid hoc est? Sine cupiditatibus vos genui, sine timoribus, sine superstitione, sine perfidia ceterisque pestibus; quales intrastis exite.

A man has grasped wisdom if he will die as untroubled as he is born; but as it is, we tremble when danger has drawn near, neither our spirit nor our color holds firm; tears fall that will do no good. What is more shameful than to be anxious on the very threshold of security?

Percepit sapientiam, si quis tam securus morietur quam nascitur; nunc vero trepidamus, cum periculum accessit, non animus nobis, non color constat; lacrimae nihil profuturae cadunt. Quid est turpius quam in ipso limine securitatis esse sollicitum?

The cause, however, is this: that we are empty of all goods, and labor under a waste of life. For no part of it has settled with us; it has passed through and flowed away. No one cares how well he lives, but how long, though it can fall to all to live well, to none to live long. Farewell.

Causa autem haec est, quod inanes omnium bonorum sumus, vitae iactura laboramus. Non enim apud nos pars eius ulla subsedit; transmissa est et effluxit. Nemo quam bene vivat, sed quam diu, curat, cum omnibus possit contingere, ut bene vivant, ut diu, nulli. Vale.

Do you think I am going to write to you how kindly the winter has dealt with us, a winter both mild and short, how spiteful the spring is, how out of season its cold, and other trifles of men hunting for something to say? No, I will write something that can profit both me and you. And what will that be, but to exhort you to a sound mind? Do you ask what its foundation is? Not to rejoice in empty things. I said it is the foundation; it is the crown.

Putas me tibi scripturum, quam humane nobiscum hiemps egerit, quae et remissa fuit et brevis, quam malignum ver sit, quam praeposterum frigus, et alias ineptias verba quaerentium? Ego vero aliquid, quod et mihi et tibi prodesse possit, scribam. Quid autem id erit, nisi ut te exhorter ad bonam mentem? Huius fundamentum quod sit quaeris? Ne gaudeas vanis. Fundamentum hoc esse dixi; culmen est.

He has reached the summit who knows what to rejoice in, who has not placed his happiness in another’s power; he is anxious and unsure of himself whom some hope goads, even if it is at hand, even if it is not sought from any difficulty, even if his hopes have never deceived him.

Ad summa pervenit, qui scit, quo gaudeat, qui felicitatem suam in aliena potestate non posuit; sollicitus est et incertus sui, quem spes aliqua proritat, licet ad manum sit, licet non ex difficili petatur, licet numquam illum sperata deceperint.

Before all things do this, my Lucilius: learn to rejoice. Do you now suppose that I am taking many pleasures from you, when I remove the things of chance, when I think the hopes, those sweetest delights, are to be avoided? On the contrary: I do not want gladness ever to be lacking to you. I want it to be born for you at home; and it is born, if only it is within your very self. Other cheerfulnesses do not fill the breast; they smooth the brow, they are light, unless perhaps you judge that the man who laughs is rejoicing. The mind must be eager and confident and raised above all things.

Hoc ante omnia fac, mi Lucili: disce gaudere.

Believe me, true joy is a stern matter. Or do you suppose that anyone with a loose face, and, as those dainty fellows say, a merry little look, despises death, opens his door to poverty, holds his pleasures under the bridle, rehearses the endurance of pains? He who turns these things over within himself is in great joy, but a joy little caressing. In the possession of this joy I want you to be; it will never fail you, once you have found whence it is sought.

Mihi crede, verum gaudium res severa est. An tu existimas quemquam soluto vultu et, ut isti delicati locuntur, hilariculo mortem contemnere, paupertati domum aperire, voluptates tenere sub freno, meditari dolorum patientiam? Haec qui apud se versat, in magno gaudio est, sed parum blando. In huius gaudii possessione esse te volo; numquam deficiet, cum semel unde petatur inveneris.

The yield of slight mines is at the surface; those are richest whose vein lies deep, to answer ever more fully the man who digs. The things in which the crowd delights have a thin and superficial pleasure, and whatever joy is imported lacks a foundation. This of which I speak, to which I am trying to bring you, is solid, and one that opens out more the further within.

Levium metallorum fructus in summo est; illa opulentissima sunt, quorum in alto latet vena adsidue plenius responsura fodienti. Haec, quibus delectatur vulgus, tenuem habent ac perfusoriam voluptatem, et quodcumque invecticium gaudium est, fundamento caret. Hoc, de quo loquor, ad quod te conor perducere, solidum est et quod plus pateat introrsus.

Do, I beg you, dearest Lucilius, the one thing that can render you happy: scatter and trample those things that glitter from outside, that are promised to you by another or out of another; look to the true good, and rejoice from what is your own. And what is this from your own? Yourself, and the best part of you. The poor little body too, even if nothing can be done without it, count a thing more necessary than great; it supplies empty pleasures, brief, to be repented of, and, unless tempered with great moderation, sure to turn into their opposite. So I say: pleasure stands on a precipice and inclines toward pain, unless it has kept measure. But to keep measure in what you have believed to be good is hard. The greed for the true good is safe.

Fac, oro te, Lucili carissime, quod unum potest praestare felicem: dissice et conculca ista, quae extrinsecus splendent, quae tibi promittuntur ab alio vel ex alio, ad verum bonum specta et de tuo gaude. Quid est autem hoc de tuo? Te ipso et tui optima parte. Corpusculum quoque, etiam si nihil fieri sine illo potest, magis necessariam rem crede quam magnam; vanas suggerit voluptates, breves, paenitendas, ac nisi magna moderatione temperentur, in contrarium abituras. Ita dico: in praecipiti voluptas ad dolorem vergit, nisi modum tenuit.

What is this, you ask, or whence does it come? I will tell you: from a good conscience, from honorable counsels, from right actions, from contempt of the things of chance, from the calm and continuous tenor of a life that holds to one path. For those who pass from some plans to others, or do not even pass but are carried across by some chance, how can they, suspended and wandering, possess anything sure or lasting?

Quid sit istud, interrogas, aut unde subeat? Dicam: ex bona conscientia, ex honestis consiliis, ex rectis actionibus, ex contemptu fortuitorum, ex placido vitae et continuo tenore unam prementis viam. Nam illi, qui ex aliis propositis in alia transibunt aut ne transibunt quidem, sed casu quodam transmittuntur, quomodo habere quicquam certum mansurumve possunt suspensi et vagi?

Few are they who order themselves and their affairs by design; the rest, in the manner of things that float on rivers, do not go but are carried. Of these, some a gentler wave has held back and borne more softly, some a more violent one has snatched away, some the current, slackening near the bank, has set down, some a torrent’s rush has flung into the sea. Therefore we must settle what we want, and persevere in it.

Pauci sunt, qui consilio se suaque disponant, ceteri eorum more, quae fluminibus innatant, non eunt, sed feruntur. Ex quibus alia lenior unda detinuit ac mollius vexit, alia vehementior rapuit, alia proxima ripae cursu languescente deposuit, alia torrens impetus in mare eiecit. Ideo constituendum est, quid velimus, et in eo perseverandum.

Here is the place for paying my debt. For I can render you a saying of your Epicurus and discharge this letter: "It is irksome always to be beginning life." Or, if the sense can be better expressed thus: "They live badly who are always beginning to live."

Hic est locus solvendi aeris alieni. Possum enim tibi vocem Epicuri tui reddere et hanc epistulam liberare: Molestum est semper vitam incohare. Aut si hoc modo magis sensus potest exprimi: Male vivunt, qui semper vivere incipiunt.

"Why?" you say, for that saying calls for explanation. Because their life is always unfinished. But a man cannot stand ready for death who is only just beginning to live. We must so act that we have lived enough. No one thinks this who is at this very moment first setting out on life.

Quare? inquis, desiderat enim explanationem ista vox. Quia semper illis inperfecta vita est. Non potest autem stare paratus ad mortem, qui modo incipit vivere. Id agendum est, ut satis vixerimus. Nemo hoc putat, qui orditur cum maxime vitam.

There is no reason for you to suppose these men few; they are very nearly all. Some indeed begin to live just when they must leave off. If you think this strange, I will add what you will wonder at more: some have ceased to live before they began. Farewell.

Non est quod existimes paucos esse hos; propemodum omnes sunt. Quidam vero tunc incipiunt, cum desinendum est. Si hoc iudicas mirum, adiciam quod magis admireris: quidam ante vivere desierunt quam inciperent. Vale.

You write that you are anxious about the outcome of a lawsuit which the rage of an enemy threatens you with, and you suppose I will advise you to set before yourself better things and to rest in flattering hope. For why is it necessary to summon evils, to be suffered soon enough when they come, to forestall them, and to lose the present time in fear of the future? It is without doubt foolish, because you are to be wretched at some point, to be wretched already. But I will lead you to security by another road.

Sollicitum esse te scribis de iudicii eventu, quod tibi furor inimici denuntiat, existimas me suasurum, ut meliora tibi ipse proponas et adquiescas spei blandae. Quid enim necesse est mala accersere, satis cito patienda cum venerint, praesumere ac praesens tempus futuri metu perdere? Est sine dubio stultum, quia quandoque sis futurus miser, esse iam miserum. Sed ego alia te ad securitatem via ducam:

If you wish to put off all anxiety, set it before yourself that whatever you fear may happen will happen in any case; and whatever that evil is, measure it against yourself and appraise your fear; you will surely understand that what you fear is either not great or not long.

si vis omnem sollicitudinem exuere, quicquid vereris ne eveniat, eventurum utique propone, et quodcumque est illud malum, tecum ipse metire ac timorem tuum taxa; intelleges profecto aut non magnum aut non longum esse, quod metuis.

Nor must examples to steady you be long in the gathering; every age has borne them. Into whatever quarter of affairs, civil or foreign, you send your memory, there will meet you minds great either in achievement or in onset. Can anything harder befall you, if you are condemned, than to be sent into exile, to be led to prison? Is there anything beyond this for anyone to fear, than to be burned, than to perish? Set up each of these singly, and call up those who have despised them, men not to be sought out but chosen.

Nec diu exempla, quibus confirmeris, colligenda sunt; omnis illa aetas tulit. In quamcumque partem rerum vel civilium vel externarum memoriam miseris, occurrent tibi ingenia aut profectus aut inpetus magni.

Rutilius bore his condemnation as if nothing else troubled him than that he was judged wrongly. Metellus bore exile bravely, Rutilius even gladly; the one rendered it to the state that he should return, the other refused his return to Sulla, to whom nothing was then refused. In prison Socrates disputed, and, when there were those who promised him flight, was unwilling to go out and remained, that he might rid men of the fear of two most grievous things, death and prison.

Damnationem suam Rutilius sic tulit, tamquam nihil illi molestum aliud esset quam quod male iudicaretur. Exilium Metellus fortiter tulit, Rutilius etiam libenter; alter, ut rediret, rei publicae praestitit, alter reditum suum Sullae negavit, cui nihil tunc negabatur. In carcere Socrates disputavit et exire, cum essent qui promitterent fugam, noluit remansitque, ut duarum rerum gravissimarum hominibus metum demeret, mortis et carceris.

Mucius laid his hand upon the fire. It is bitter to be burned; how much more bitter, if you suffer it by your own doing! You see a man not learned, nor armed with any precepts against death or pain, equipped only with a soldier’s toughness, exacting from himself the penalty of a frustrated attempt: he stood watching his right hand drip away on the enemy’s brazier, and did not draw back the hand, melting down to the bare bones, before the fire was taken from him by his enemy. He could have done something more fortunate in that camp, nothing braver. See how much keener courage is to seize dangers than cruelty is to inflict them: Porsenna more easily forgave Mucius for wishing to kill him than Mucius forgave himself for not having killed.

Mucius ignibus manum inposuit. Acerbum est uri; quanto acerbius, si id te faciente patiaris! Vides hominem non eruditum nec ullis praeceptis contra mortem aut dolorem subornatum, militari tantum robore instructum, poenas a se inriti conatus exigentem; spectator destillantis in hostili foculo dexterae stetit nec ante removit nudis ossibus fluentem manum, quam ignis illi ab hoste subductus est. Facere aliquid in illis castris felicius potuit, nihil fortius. Vide quanto acrior sit ad occupanda pericula virtus quam crudelitas ad inroganda: facilius Porsenna Mucio ignovit, quod voluerat occidere, quam sibi Mucius, quod non occiderat.

"Those tales," you say, "are sung over in all the schools; soon, when we come to despising death, you will tell me about Cato." Why should I not tell of him, reading Plato’s book on that last night with a sword laid at his head? He had provided himself in his extremity with two instruments: the one, that he might be willing to die; the other, that he might be able. So, having set his affairs in order, as far as things broken and final could be set in order, he judged that he must act so that it should be in no one’s power either to kill Cato or to have the luck of saving him.

Decantatae, inquis, in omnibus scholis fabulae istae sunt; iam mihi, cum ad contemnendam mortem ventum fuerit, Catonem narrabis. Quidni ego narrem ultima illa nocte Platonis librum legentem posito ad caput gladio? Duo haec in rebus extremis instrumenta prospexerat, alterum ut vellet mori, alterum, ut posset. Compositis ergo rebus, utcumque componi fractae atque ultimae poterant, id agendum existimavit, ne cui Catonem aut occidere liceret aut servare contingeret.

And drawing the sword, which he had kept until that day pure of all slaughter, he said: "You have accomplished nothing, fortune, by standing against all my efforts. I have fought until now not for my own freedom but for my country’s, nor did I act with such persistence in order to live free, but to live among the free. Now, since the affairs of the human race are past mourning, let Cato be conveyed to safety."

Et stricto gladio, quem usque in illum diem ab omni caede purum servaverat: Nihil, inquit, egisti, fortuna, omnibus conatibus meis obstando. Non pro mea adhuc sed pro patriae libertate pugnavi, nec agebam tanta pertinacia, ut liber, sed ut inter liberos viverem. Nunc quoniam deploratae sunt res generis humani, Cato deducatur in tutum.

Then he drove a death-dealing wound into his body. When the physicians had bound it up and he had less blood, less strength, but the same spirit, now angry not only at Caesar but at himself, he thrust his bare hands into the wound and did not merely release, but flung out, that noble spirit, that despiser of all power.

Inpressit deinde mortiferum corpori vulnus. Quo obligato a medicis cum minus sanguinis haberet, minus virium, animi idem, iam non tantum Caesari sed sibi iratus nudas in vulnus manus egit et generosum illum contemptoremque omnis potentiae spiritum non emisit, sed eiecit.

I am not now heaping up examples to exercise my wit, but to exhort you against that which seems most terrible. And I shall exhort you more easily if I show that not only brave men have despised this moment of breathing out the soul, but that certain men, cowardly in other matters, have in this thing matched the spirit of the bravest, as that Scipio, the father-in-law of Gnaeus Pompey, who, carried back to Africa by a contrary wind, when he saw his ship held by the enemy, ran himself through with the sword, and to those asking where the commander was, replied, "The commander is well."

Non in hoc exempla nunc congero, ut ingenium exerceam, sed ut te adversus id, quod maxime terribile videtur, exhorter. Facilius autem exhortabor, si ostendero non fortes tantum viros hoc momentum efflandae animae contempsisse, sed quosdam ad alia ignavos in hac re aequasse animum fortissimorum, sicut illum Cn. Pompei socerum Scipionem, qui contrario in Africam vento relatus cum teneri navem suam vidisset ab hostibus, ferro se transverberavit et quaerentibus, ubi imperator esset, Imperator, inquit, se bene habet.

This utterance made him equal to his ancestors and did not suffer the glory fated to the Scipios in Africa to be broken off. It was much to conquer Carthage, but more to conquer death. "The commander," he said, "is well." Ought a commander to die otherwise, and a Scipio at that?

Vox haec illum parem maioribus fecit et fatalem Scipionibus in Africa gloriam non est interrumpi passa. Multum fuit Carthaginem vincere, sed amplius mortem. Imperator, inquit, se bene habet. An aliter debebat imperator, et quidem Catenis, mori?

I do not call you back to the histories, nor gather despisers of death from all the ages, who are very many. Look to these times of ours, of whose slackness and luxury we complain; they will furnish men of every rank, of every fortune, of every age, who have cut short their evils by death. Believe me, Lucilius, death is so far from being to be feared that by its kindness nothing is to be feared. So listen, untroubled, to the threats of your enemy.

Non revoco te ad historias nec ex omnibus saeculis contemptores mortis, qui sunt plurimi, colligo. Respice ad haec nostra tempora, de quorum languore ac deliciis querimur; omnis ordinis homines suggerent, omnis fortunae, omnis aetatis, qui mala sua morte praeciderint.

And although your conscience gives you confidence, still, because many things outside the case have weight, both hope for what is most just and prepare yourself for what is most unjust. But above all remember this: to strip the tumult from things and see what is in each; you will know there is nothing terrible in them but fear itself.

Et quamvis conscientia tibi tua fiduciam faciat, tamen quia multa extra causam valent, et quod aequissimum est spera, et ad id te quod est iniquissimum conpara. Illud autem ante omnia memento, demere rebus tumultum ac videre, quid in quaque re sit; scies nihil esse in istis terribile nisi ipsum timorem.

What you see happen to children happens to us too, the somewhat bigger children: those whom they love, to whom they are used, with whom they play, if they see them masked, they take fright. Not only from men but from things the mask must be stripped, and their own face given back.

Quod vides accidere pueris, hoc nobis quoque maiusculis pueris evenit: illi quos amant, quibus adsueverunt, cum quibus ludunt, si personatos vident, expavescunt. Non hominibus tantum, sed rebus persona demenda est et reddenda facies sua.

Why do you show me swords and fires and a throng of executioners roaring around you? Take away that pageantry, beneath which you hide and frighten fools! You are death, whom lately my slave, whom my serving-maid despised. Why do you again unfold for me, with great display, the whips and the racks? Why the separate engines fitted to each joint to wrench it out, and the thousand other instruments for tearing a man apart limb by limb? Lay aside those things that stupefy us. Bid the groans fall silent, and the cries, and the bitterness of voices forced out amid the mangling. Surely you are pain, whom that gouty man despises, whom that dyspeptic endures in the midst of his delights, whom the girl endures in childbirth. You are light, if I can bear you; brief, if I cannot.

Quid mihi gladios et ignes ostendis et turbam carnificum circa te frementem? Tolle istam pompam, sub qua lates et stultos territas! Mors es, quam nuper servus meus, quam ancilla contempsit. Quid tu rursus mihi flagella et eculeos magno apparatu explicas? Quid singulis articulis singula machinamenta, quibus extorqueantur, aptata et mille alia instrumenta excarnificandi particulatim hominis? Pone ista, quae nos obstupefaciunt. Iube conticiscere gemitus et exclamationes et vocum inter lacerationem elisarum acerbitatem! Nempe dolor es, quem podagricus ille contemnit, quem stomachicus ille in ipsis deliciis perfert, quem in puerperio puella perpetitur. Levis es, si ferre possum, brevis es, si ferre non possum.

Turn these things over in your mind, things you have often heard, often said. But whether you have truly heard, whether you have truly said, prove by the effect. For this is the most shameful thing that is wont to be cast at us, that we handle the words of philosophy, not its works. What, did you now first learn that death hangs over you, now exile, now pain? For these you were born. Whatever can happen, let us think of as bound to happen.

Haec in animo voluta, quae saepe audisti, saepe dixisti. Sed an vere audieris, an vere dixeris, effectu proba. Hoc enim turpissimum est, quod nobis obici solet, verba nos philosophiae, non opera tractare.

What I advise you to do, I am sure you have done; now I admonish you not to drown your mind in that anxiety. For it will be blunted and have less vigor when it must rise up. Lead it away from your private case to the public one. Tell it that your poor body is mortal and frail, to which pain will be threatened not only from injustice or from a stronger man’s strength. The very pleasures turn into torments: feasts bring indigestion, drunkenness a numbness and trembling of the sinews, lusts a distortion of the feet, the hands, all the joints.

Quod facere te moneo, scio certe te fecisse; nunc admoneo, ut animum tuum non mergas in istam sollicitudinem. Hebetabitur enim et minus habebit vigoris, cum exurgendum erit. Abduc illum a privata causa ad publicam. Dic mortale tibi et fragile corpusculum esse, cui non ex iniuria tantum aut ex potentioris viribus denuntiabitur dolor. Ipsae voluptates in tormenta vertuntur, epulae cruditatem adferunt, ebrietates nervorum torporem tremoremque, libidines pedum, manuum, articulorum omnium depravationes.

"I shall become poor": I shall be among the more. "I shall become an exile": I shall think myself born in the place to which I am sent. "I shall be bound": what of it? Am I now loose? Nature has fastened me to this heavy weight of my body. "I shall die": you are saying, I shall cease to be able to be sick, cease to be able to be bound, cease to be able to die.

Pauper fiam; inter plures ero. Exul fiam; ibi me natum putabo, quo mittar. Alligabor; quid enim? Nunc solutus sum? Ad hoc me natura grave corporis mei pondus adstrinxit. Moriar; hoc dicis, desinam aegrotare posse, desinam alligari posse, desinam mori posse.

I am not so silly as to run through the Epicurean refrain at this point and say that the fears of the underworld are empty, that Ixion is not whirled on his wheel, nor the stone shouldered uphill by Sisyphus, nor anyone’s entrails able to be reborn and devoured daily; no one is so much a child as to fear Cerberus and the darkness and the ghostly shape of bones clinging together. Death either consumes us or strips us bare. To those released, the better remains, the burden taken off; to those consumed, nothing remains, goods and evils alike are removed.

Non sum tam ineptus, ut Epicuream cantilenam hoc loco persequar et dicam vanos esse inferorum metus, nec Ixionem rota volvi nec saxum umeris Sisyphi trudi in adversum nec ullius viscera et renasci posse cotidie et carpi; nemo tam puer est, ut Cerberum timeat et tenebras et larvalem habitum nudis ossibus cohaerentium. Mors nos aut consumit aut exuit. Emissis meliora restant onere detracto, consumptis nihil restat, bona pariter malaque submota sunt.

Allow me at this point to quote a verse of your own, if first I have warned you to judge that you wrote it not for others but for yourself as well. It is shameful to say one thing and feel another; how much more shameful to write one thing and feel another! I remember that you once handled that theme, that we do not fall into death suddenly but proceed by little and little; we die daily.

Permitte mihi hoc loco referre versum tuum, si prius admonuero, ut te iudices non aliis scripsisse ista, sed etiam tibi. Turpe est aliud loqui, aliud sentire; quanto turpius aliud scribere, aliud sentire! Memini te illum locum aliquando tractasse, non repente nos in mortem incidere, sed minutatim procedere; cotidie morimur.

For daily some part of life is taken away, and even when we are growing, life is shrinking. We have lost infancy, then childhood, then youth. Right up to yesterday, whatever time has passed is gone; this very day that we are spending, we share with death. As it is not the last drop that empties the water-clock, but whatever has flowed down before, so the final hour, at which we cease to be, does not alone make death, but alone completes it; then we reach it, but we have long been coming.

Cotidie enim demitur aliqua pars vitae, et tunc quoque, cum crescimus, vita decrescit. Infantiam amisimus, deinde pueritiam, deinde adulescentiam. Usque ad hesternum, quicquid transît temporis, perit; hunc ipsum, quem agimus, diem cum morte dividimus. Quemadmodum clepsydram non extremum stillicidium exhaurit, sed quicquid ante defluxit, sic ultima hora, qua esse desinimus, non sola mortem facit, sed sola consummat; tunc ad illam pervenimus, sed diu venimus.

"Not one death comes, but the death that snatches us away is the last."

I see where you are looking; you ask what I have stuffed into this letter, what spirited saying of someone, what useful precept. From this very material that has been in hand, something shall be sent. Epicurus rebukes those who long for death no less than those who fear it, and says: "It is ridiculous to run to death out of weariness of life, when by your way of life you have made it necessary to run to death."

Video quo spectes; quaeris, quid huic epistulae infulserim, quod dictum alicuius animosum, quod praeceptum utile. Ex hac ipsa materia, quae in manibus fuit, mittetur aliquid. Obiurgat Epicurus non minus eos, qui mortem concupiscunt, quam eos, qui timent, et ait: Ridiculum est currere ad mortem taedio vitae, cum genere vitae, ut currendum ad mortem esset, effeceris.

Likewise in another place he says: "What is so ridiculous as to crave death, when you have made your life restless by the fear of death?" To these you may add this too, of the same stamp: that men’s want of foresight is so great, no, their madness, that some are driven to death by the fear of death.

Item alio loco dicit: Quid tam ridiculum quam adpetere mortem, cum vitam inquietam tibi feceris metu mortis? His adicias et illud eiusdem notae licet, tantam hominum inprudentiam esse, immo dementiam, ut quidam timore mortis cogantur ad mortem.

Whichever of these you ponder, you will harden your mind for the endurance either of death or of life. For toward both we must be admonished and strengthened, both not to love life too much and not to hate it too much. Even when reason persuades us to make an end of ourselves, the impulse must not be seized rashly or with a rush.

Quicquid horum tractaveris, confirmabis animum vel ad mortis vel ad vitae patientiam. In utrumque enim monendi ac firmandi sumus, et ne nimis amemus vitam et ne nimis oderimus. Etiam cum ratio suadet finire se, non temere nec cum procursu capiendus est inpetus.

A brave and wise man ought not to flee from life but to walk out of it. And above all let that feeling too be avoided which has seized many, the lust to die. For there is, my Lucilius, as toward other things, so also toward dying, an ill-considered inclination of the mind, which often seizes men of noble and most ardent nature, often the cowardly and supine; the former despise life, the latter are weighed down by it.

Vir fortis ac sapiens non fugere debet e vita, sed exire. Et ante omnia ille quoque vitetur affectus, qui multos occupavit, libido moriendi. Est enim, mi Lucili, ut ad alia, sic etiam ad moriendum inconsulta animi inclinatio, quae saepe generosos atque acerrimae indolis viros corripit, saepe ignavos iacentesque; illi contemnunt vitam, hi gravantur.

Upon some there comes a satiety of doing and seeing the same things, and not a hatred of life but a distaste for it, into which we slide with philosophy itself driving us, while we say: "How long the same things? To be sure I shall wake, I shall sleep, I shall be hungry, I shall be sated, I shall be cold, I shall be hot. There is no end of anything, but all things are linked in a circle, they flee and they follow. Night presses on day, day on night, summer ends in autumn, on autumn winter treads, which is checked by spring; all things so pass that they may return. I do nothing new, I see nothing new; sometimes a nausea of this too sets in." There are many who judge living not bitter but superfluous. Farewell.

Quosdam subit eadem faciendi videndique satietas et vitae non odium sed fastidium, in quod prolabimur ipsa inpellente philosophia, dum dicimus: Quousque eadem? Nempe expergiscar dormiam, esuriam fastidiam, algebo aestuabo. Nullius rei finis est, sed in orbem nexa sunt omnia, fugiunt ac secuntur. Diem nox premit, dies noctem, aestas in autumnum desinit, autumno hiemps instat, quae vere conpescitur; omnia sic transeunt ut revertantur. Nihil novi facio, nihil novi video; fit aliquando et huius rei nausia.

As to what concerns our two friends, we must go by different roads; the vices of the one are to be amended, the other’s to be broken. I will use full freedom. I do not love that man unless I give offense. "What then?" you say; "do you mean to keep a forty-year-old ward under your guardianship?" Look at his age, already hard and intractable. He cannot be refashioned; only soft things are molded.

Quod ad duos amicos nostros pertinet, diversa via eundum est; alterius enim vitia emendanda, alterius frangenda sunt. Utar libertate tota. Non amo illum, nisi offendo. Quid ergo? inquis, quadragenarium pupillum cogitas sub tutela tua continere? Respice aetatem eius iam duram et intractabilem. Non potest reformari; tenera finguntur.

Whether I shall make progress I do not know. I would rather success failed me than good faith. Nor should you despair that even long-standing invalids can be healed, if you stand against their intemperance, if you compel them to do and to suffer many things against their will. Not even of the other do I have confidence enough, except for this, that he still blushes at sinning. This shame must be nourished; as long as it lasts in his mind, there will be some room for good hope. With this veteran I think we must deal more sparingly, lest he fall into despair of himself.

An profecturus sim nescio. Malo successum mihi quam fidem deesse. Nec desperaveris etiam diutinos aegros posse sanari, si contra intemperantiam steteris, si multa invitos et facere coegeris et pati. Ne de altero quidem satis fiduciae habeo, excepto eo, quod adhuc peccare erubescit. Nutriendus est hic pudor, qui quamdiu in animo eius duraverit, aliquis erit bonae spei locus. Cum hoc veterano parcius agendum puto, ne in desperationem sui veniat.

Nor was there ever a better time to attack than this, while he is taking a rest, while he is like a man amended. To others this remission of his has imposed; to me he does not give the slip. I expect his vices to return with great interest, which I know are now in abeyance, not absent. I will spend some days on this matter and try whether something can be done or not.

Nec ullum tempus adgrediendi fuit melius quam hoc, dum interquiescit, dum emendato similis est. Aliis haec intermissio eius inposuit; mihi verba non dat. Exspecto cum magno faenore vitia reditura, quae nunc scio cessare, non deesse. Inpendam huic rei dies et utrum possit aliquid agi an non possit, experiar.

Do you, as you do, show yourself brave to us, and draw in your baggage. Nothing of what we have is necessary. Let us return to the law of nature; riches are ready to hand. What we need is either free or cheap; bread and water nature desires. No one is poor as to these, and whoever has confined his desire within them may contend with Jove himself for happiness, as Epicurus says, some saying of whom I will wrap into this letter.

Tu nobis te, ut facis, fortem praesta et sarcinas contrahe. Nihil ex his, quae habemus, necessarium est. Ad legem naturae revertamur; divitiae paratae sunt. Aut gratuitum est, quo egemus, aut vile; panem et aquam natura desiderat Nemo ad haec pauper est, intra quae quisquis desiderium suum clusit, cum ipso Iove de felicitate contendat, ut ait Epicurus, cuius aliquam vocem huic epistulae involvam.

"Do everything," he says, "as though Epicurus were watching." It profits, without doubt, to have set a guard over oneself and to have one whom you may look to, whom you judge present in your thoughts. This indeed is far more magnificent, so to live as though under the eyes of some good man, and one always present; but I am content even with this, that you do whatever you do as though someone were watching; solitude persuades us to all evils.

Sic fac, inquit, omnia, tamquam spectet Epicurus. Prodest sine dubio custodem sibi inposuisse et habere, quem respicias, quem interesse cogitationibus tuis iudices. Hoc quidem longe magnificentius est, sic vivere tamquam sub alicuius boni viri ac semper praesentis oculis, sed ego etiam hoc contentus sum, ut sic facias, quaecumque facies, tamquam spectet aliquis; omnia nobis mala solitudo persuadet.

When you have advanced so far that there is in you even a reverence for yourself, you may dismiss your tutor; meanwhile guard yourself by the authority of certain men: let it be Cato, or Scipio, or Laelius, or any such man at whose coming even abandoned men would check their vices, while you are making yourself into one with whom you would not dare to sin. When you have done this, and some esteem of yourself has begun in you, I will begin to allow you what the same Epicurus advises: "Then most of all withdraw into yourself, when you are forced to be in a crowd."

Cum iam profeceris tantum, ut sit tibi etiam tui reverentia, licebit dimittas paedagogum; interim aliquorum te auctoritate custodi, aut Cato ille sit aut Scipio aut Laelius aut talis, cuius interventu perditi quoque homines vitia supprimerent, dum te efficis eum, cum quo peccare non audeas. Cum hoc effeceris, et aliqua coeperit apud te tui esse dignatio, incipiam tibi permittere, quod idem suadet Epicurus: Tunc praecipue in te ipse secede, cum esse cogeris in turba.

You must make yourself unlike the many. While it is not yet safe for you to withdraw into yourself, look at men one by one; there is no one with whom it is not better to be than with himself. "Then most of all withdraw into yourself, when you are forced to be in a crowd", if you are a good man, if a quiet one, if a temperate one. Otherwise you must withdraw from yourself into the crowd; there you are nearer to a good man. Farewell.

Dissimilem te fieri multis oportet. Dum tibi tutum non est ad te recedere, circumspice singulos; nemo est, cui non satius sit cum quolibet esse quam secum. Tunc praecipue in te ipse secede, cum esse cogeris in turba; si bonus vir, si quietus, si temperans. Alioquin in turbam tibi a te recedendum est; istic malo viro propius es. Vale.

I was just now telling you that I was within sight of old age; now I am afraid I have left old age behind me. Another word now fits these years, certainly this body, since old age is the name of an age that is weary, not broken; count me among the decrepit and those touching the very end.

Modo dicebam tibi, in conspectu esse me senectutis; iam vereor, ne senectutem post me reliquerim. Aliud iam his annis, certe huic corpori, vocabulum convenit, quoniam quidem senectus lassae aetatis, non fractae, nomen est; inter decrepitos me numera et extrema tangentis.

Yet I give thanks for myself in your presence; I do not feel in my mind the injury of age, though I feel it in my body. Only my vices, and the servants of my vices, have grown old; the mind is vigorous and rejoices that it has little to do with the body. It has laid down a great part of its burden. It exults and picks a quarrel with me about old age. It says this is its flower.

Gratias tamen mihi apud te ago; non sentio in animo aetatis iniuriam, cum sentiam in corpore. Tantum vitia et vitiorum ministeria senuerunt; viget animus et gaudet non multum sibi esse cum corpore. Magnam partem oneris sui posuit. Exultat et mihi facit controversiam de senectute. Hunc ait esse florem suum.

Let us believe it; let it enjoy its own good. It bids me go into reflection and discern how much of this tranquility and moderation of character I owe to wisdom, how much to my age, and to examine carefully what I cannot do and what I do not wish to do, glad to count it gain that I am no longer able to do whatever I would in any case not wish to do. For what grievance is it, what disadvantage, if what was bound to leave off has failed?

Credamus illi; bono suo utatur. Ire in cogitationem iubet et dispicere, quid ex hac tranquillitate ac modestia morum sapientiae debeam, quid aetati, et diligenter excutere, quae non possim facere, quae nolim †prodesse habiturus ad qui si nolim quidquid non posse me gaudeo†. Quae enim querella est, quod incommodum, si quidquid debebat desinere, defecit?

"It is the greatest disadvantage," you say, "to be diminished and to waste away and, to speak properly, to melt. For we are not suddenly struck down and laid low; we are nibbled at. Single days subtract something from our strength." But is there any better exit than to slip away to one’s own end, with nature dissolving us? Not that there is anything evil in a blow and a sudden departure from life, but because this is a gentle road, to be drawn off quietly. I at any rate, as though the trial were drawing near and that day had come which is to pass sentence on all my years, so watch myself and address myself:

Incommodum summum est, inquis, minui et deperire et, ut proprie dicam, liquescere. Non enim subito inpulsi ac prostrati sumus; carpimur. Singuli dies aliquid subtrahunt viribus.

"It is nothing," I say, "that we have so far displayed in deeds or words. These are light and deceptive pledges of the mind, wrapped in many enticements; what progress I have made I will entrust to death to judge. So without fear I compose myself for that day on which, with tricks and dyes removed, I shall judge of myself, whether I speak brave things or feel them, whether it was pretense and mime, whatever defiant words I have hurled against fortune."

Nihil est, inquam, adhuc, quod aut rebus aut verbis exhibuimus. Levia sunt ista et fallacia pignora animi multisque involuta lenociniis; quid profecerim, morti crediturus sum. Non timide itaque conponor ad illum diem, quo remotis strophis ac fucis de me iudicaturus sum, utrum loquar fortia an sentiam, numquid simulatio fuerit et mimus, quicquid contra fortunam iactavi verborum contumacium.

Remove the estimation of men; it is always doubtful and divided into both parts. Remove the studies pursued all your life; death is going to pronounce upon you. So I say: disputations and literary conversations and words gathered from the precepts of the wise and cultivated talk do not show the true strength of the mind. For speech is bold even in the most timid. What you have done will then appear, when you give up the ghost. I accept the terms, I do not shrink from the judgment.

Remove existimationem hominum; dubia semper est et in partem utramque dividitur. Remove studia tota vita tractata; mors de te pronuntiatura est. Ita dico: disputationes et litterata conloquia et ex praeceptis sapientium verba collecta et eruditus sermo non ostendunt verum robur animi. Est enim oratio etiam timidissimis audax. Quid egeris, tunc apparebit, cum animam ages. Accipio condicionem, non reformido iudicium.

These things I say to myself, but think that I have said them to you too. You are younger; what does it matter? The years are not counted out. It is uncertain in what place death awaits you; therefore do you await it in every place.

Haec mecum loquor, sed tecum quoque me locutum puta. Iuvenior es; quid refert? Non dinumerantur anni. Incertum est, quo loco te mors expectet; itaque tu illam omni loco expecta.

I was already wishing to leave off, and my hand was looking toward the close; but the rites must be completed, and travel-money given to this letter. Suppose I do not say whence I am about to take the loan: you know whose chest I use. Wait for me a little, and the payment will be made from my own house; meanwhile Epicurus will lend, who says: "Rehearse death," or, if it is more convenient to put it so, "to pass over to the gods."

Desinere iam volebam et manus spectabat ad clausulam; sed conficienda sunt sacra et huic epistulae viaticum dandum est. Puta me non dicere, unde sumpturus sum mutuum: scis cuius arca utar. Expecta me pusillum, et de domo fiet numeratio; interim commodabit Epicurus, qui ait: Meditare mortem vel si commodius sit transire ad deos.

Here is the sense laid open: it is a fine thing to learn death thoroughly. Perhaps you think it superfluous to learn what is to be used only once. This is the very reason we ought to rehearse it; one must always be learning what we cannot test whether we know.

Hic patet sensus: egregia res est mortem condiscere. Supervacuum forsitan putas id discere, quod semel utendum est. Hoc est ipsum, quare meditari debeamus; semper discendum est, quod an sciamus, experiri non possumus.

"Rehearse death": he who says this bids us rehearse freedom. He who has learned to die has unlearned to be a slave; he is above all power, certainly beyond all. What are prison and the guard and the bars to him? He has an open door. There is one chain that holds us bound, the love of life, which is not to be cast off, yet is to be lessened, so that, if ever circumstance demands, nothing may detain us or hinder us from being ready to do at once what must at some time be done. Farewell.

Meditare mortem; qui hoc dicit, meditari libertatem iubet. Qui mori didicit, servire dedidicit; supra omnem potentiam est, certe extra omnem. Quid ad illum carcer et custodia et claustra? Liberum ostium habet. Una est catena, quae nos alligatos tenet, amor vitae, qui ut non est abiciendus, ita minuendus est, ut si quando res exiget, nihil nos detineat nec inpediat, quo minus parati simus, quod quandoque faciendum est, statim facere. Vale.

"You," you say, "admonish me? For have you already admonished yourself, already corrected yourself? Is that why you have leisure for the amendment of others?" I am not so shameless as to undertake cures while sick myself, but, as though I lay in the same infirmary, I talk with you about our common ailment and share the remedies. So listen to me as though I were talking with myself. I admit you into my private place, and with you to help I take myself to account.

Tu me, inquis, mones? Iam enim te ipse monuisti, iam correxisti? Ideo aliorum emendationi vacas? Non sum tam inprobus, ut curationes aeger obeam, sed tamquam in eodem valitudinario iaceam, de communi tecum malo conloquor et remedia communico. Sic itaque me audi, tamquam mecum loquar. In secretum te meum admitto et te adhibito mecum exigo.

I cry to myself: "Count your years, and you will be ashamed to want the same things you wanted as a boy, to provide the same things. This one thing secure for yourself as the day of death draws near: let your vices die before you. Dismiss those turbid pleasures, to be paid for dearly; not only those to come, but those already past, do harm." Just as with crimes, even if they were not caught in the doing, the anxiety does not depart along with them, so of base pleasures the repentance remains even after they are gone. They are not solid, they are not faithful; even if they do no harm, they flee.

Clamo mihi ipse: Numera annos tuos, et pudebit eadem velle, quae volueras puer, eadem parare. Hoc denique tibi circa mortis diem praesta: moriantur ante te vitia. Dimitte istas voluptates turbidas, magno luendas; non venturae tantum, sed praeteritae nocent. Quemadmodum scelera etiam si non sint deprehensa cum fierent, sollicitudo non cum ipsis abit; ita inprobarum voluptatum etiam post ipsas paenitentia est. Non sunt solidae, non sunt fideles; etiam si non nocent, fugiunt.

Look round, rather, for some good that will remain. But there is none, except what the mind finds for itself out of itself. Virtue alone furnishes a joy perpetual and secure; even if something stands in the way, it comes between only as clouds do, which are borne below and never conquer the day.

Aliquod potius bonum mansurum circumspice. Nullum autem est, nisi quod animus ex se sibi invenit. Sola virtus praestat gaudium perpetuum, securum; etiam si quid obstat, nubium modo intervenit, quae infra feruntur nec umquam diem vincunt.

When will it fall to us to reach this joy? There is no slacking so far, but let there be haste. Much work remains, on which you yourself must spend your own watching, your own labor, if you desire it to be done. This matter does not admit of delegation.

Quando ad hoc gaudium pervenire continget? Non quidem cessatur adhuc, sed festinetur. Multum restat operis, in quod ipse necesse est vigiliam, ipse laborem tuum inpendas, si effici cupis. Delegationem res ista non recipit.

Another kind of letters admits of assistance. Calvisius Sabinus was, within our memory, a rich man. He had both the estate of a freedman and the wit of one; never have I seen a man wealthy more unbecomingly. His memory was so bad that now the name of Ulysses would slip from him, now Achilles’, now Priam’s, whom we know as well as our own tutors. No aged nomenclator, who does not render names but imposes them, ever greeted the tribes so wrongly as that man saluted his Trojans and Achaeans. Nonetheless he wished to seem learned.

Aliud litterarum genus adiutorium admittit. Calvisius Sabinus memoria nostra fuit dives. Et patrimonium habebat libertini et ingenium; numquam vidi hominem beatum indecentius. Huic memoria tam mala erat, ut illi nomen modo Vlixis excideret, modo Achillis, modo Priami, quos tam bene quam paedagogos nostros novimus. Nemo vetulus nomenclator, qui nomina non reddit, sed inponit, tam perperam tribus quam ille Troianos et Achivos persalutabat. Nihilominus eruditus volebat videri.

And so he devised this short cut: at great cost he bought slaves, one to hold Homer by heart, another Hesiod; besides, he assigned one each to the nine lyric poets. That he bought them dear is no wonder; he had not found them ready, he contracted to have them made. After this household was provided for him, he began to pester his guests. He kept these men at his feet, and when from time to time he asked them for verses to repeat, he would often break down in the middle of a word.

Hanc itaque conpendiariam excogitavit: magna summa emit servos, unum, qui Homerum teneret, alterum, qui Hesiodum; novem praeterea lyricis singulos adsignavit. Magno emisse illum non est quod mireris; non invenerat, faciendos locavit. Postquam haec familia illi conparata est, coepit convivas suos inquietare. Habebat ad pedes hos, a quibus subinde cum peteret versus, quos referret, saepe in medio verbo excidebat.

Satellius Quadratus, a nibbler at rich fools, and (what follows) a flatterer of them, and (what is joined to these two) a mocker of them, advised him to keep grammarians as gleaners. When Sabinus said that each slave cost him a hundred thousand sesterces, he said: "For less you could have bought as many bookcases." Yet that man held the opinion that he knew whatever anyone in his household knew.

Suasit illi Satellius Quadratus, stultorum divitum adrosor, et quod sequitur, adrisor, et quod duobus his adiunctum est, derisor, ut grammaticos haberet analectas. Cum dixisset Sabinus centenis milibus sibi constare singulos servos; Minoris, inquit, totidem scrinia emisses. Ille tamen in ea opinione erat, ut putaret se scire, quod quisquam in domo sua sciret.

The same Satellius began to urge him to wrestle, a man sickly, pale, frail. When Sabinus replied, "And how can I? I scarcely live," he said, "Do not, I beg you, say that; do you not see how many most robust slaves you have?" A sound mind is neither lent nor bought. And I think that, if it were for sale, it would not find a buyer. Yet a bad mind is bought daily.

Idem Satellius illum hortari coepit, ut luctaretur, hominem aegrum, pallidum, gracilem. Cum Sabinus respondisset: Et quomodo possum? Vix vivo. Noli, obsecro te, inquit, istuc dicere; non vides, quam multos servos valentissimos habeas? Bona mens nec commodatur nec emitur. Et puto, si venalis esset, non haberet emptorem. At mala cotidie emitur.

But now take what I owe, and farewell. "Riches are poverty arranged by the law of nature." This Epicurus says again and again, in one way and another; but that is never said too often which is never learned well enough. To some, remedies must be shown; into some, they must be driven home. Farewell.

Sed accipe iam quod debeo et vale. Divitiae sunt ad legem naturae conposita paupertas. Hoc saepe dicit Epicurus aliter atque aliter; sed numquam nimis dicitur, quod numquam satis discitur. Quibusdam remedia monstranda, quibusdam inculcanda sunt. Vale.

"and lands and cities draw back behind us."

To a certain man complaining of this very thing, Socrates said: "Why do you wonder that your travels do you no good, when you carry yourself about? The same cause presses you that drove you out." What can the newness of lands avail? What the acquaintance of cities or places? That tossing about comes to nothing. Do you ask why this flight does not help you? You flee in your own company. The burden of the mind must be laid down; before that, no place will please you.

Hoc idem querenti cuidam Socrates ait: Quid miraris nihil tibi peregrinationes prodesse, cum te circumferas? Premit te eadem causa, quae expulit. Quid terrarum iuvare novitas potest? Quid cognitio urbium aut locorum? In inritum cedit ista iactatio. Quaeris quare te fuga ista non adiuvet? Tecum fugis. Onus animi deponendum est; non ante tibi ullus placebit locus.

"The seer raves, if she might from her breast / shake out the great god."

But when you have removed that evil, every change of place will become pleasant; though you be driven to the farthest lands, though you be set down in any corner of barbary, that dwelling, whatever it is, will be hospitable to you. It matters more who you come as than where you come, and therefore we ought to bind our mind to no place. One must live with this conviction: "I am not born for one corner; this whole world is my country."

At cum istud exemeris malum, omnis mutatio loci iucunda fiet; in ultimas expellaris terras licebit, in quolibet barbariae angulo conloceris, hospitalis tibi illa qualiscumque sedes erit. Magis quis veneris quam quo, interest, et ideo nulli loco addicere debemus animum. Cum hac persuasione vivendum est: Non sum uni angulo natus, patria mea totus hic mundus est.

If this were clear to you, you would not wonder that you are helped not at all by the variety of regions to which you migrate, time after time, in weariness of the last. For the first of them would have pleased you, if you believed every one to be your own. As it is, you do not travel, you wander and are driven and change place for place, when the thing you seek, to live well, is set down in every place.

Quod si liqueret tibi, non admirareris nil adiuvari te regionum varietatibus, in quas subinde priorum taedio migras. Prima enim quaeque placuisset, si omnem tuam crederes. Nunc non peregrinaris, sed erras et agens ac locum ex loco mutas, cum illud, quod quaeris, bene vivere, omni loco positum sit.

Can anything be made so turbid as the forum? There too one may live quietly, if it is necessary. But if I may dispose of myself, I will flee far even from the sight and the neighborhood of the forum. For as unwholesome places try even the firmest health, so for a good mind, not yet brought to perfection and still convalescing, there are some places too little salubrious.

Num quid tam turbidum fieri potest quam forum? Ibi quoque licet quiete vivere, si necesse sit. Sed si liceat disponere se, conspectum quoque et viciniam fori procul fugiam. Nam ut loca gravia etiam firmissimam valitudinem temptant, ita bonae quoque menti necdum adhuc perfectae et convalescent! sunt aliqua parum salubria.

I disagree with those who go into the midst of the waves and, approving a tumultuous life, struggle daily with great spirit against the difficulties of affairs. The wise man will bear those things, not choose them, and will prefer to be in peace than in battle. It does not much profit to have thrown off one’s own vices, if one must wrangle with others’.

Dissentio ab his, qui in fluctus medios eunt et tumultuosam probantes vitam cotidie cum difficultatibus rerum magno animo conluctantur. Sapiens feret ista, non eliget, et malet in pace esse quam in pugna. Non multum prodest vitia sua proiecisse, si cum alienis rixandum est.

"Thirty tyrants," it is said, "stood round Socrates and could not break his spirit." What does it matter how many masters there are? Slavery is one. He who has despised it is free amid however great a crowd of those who lord it.

Triginta, inquit, tyranni Socraten circumsteterunt nec potuerunt animum eius infringere. Quid interest, quot domini sint? Servitus una est. Hanc qui contempsit, in quantalibet turba dominantium liber est.

It is time to leave off, but only if I first pay the toll. "The beginning of safety is the knowledge of one’s fault." Excellently, it seems to me, did Epicurus say this. For he who does not know that he sins does not wish to be corrected; you must catch yourself out before you can amend.

Tempus est desinere, sed si prius portorium solvero. Initium est salutis notitia peccati. Egregie mihi hoc dixisse videtur Epicurus. Nam qui peccare se nescit, corrigi non vult; deprehendas te oportet, antequam emendes.

Some men glory in their vices; do you suppose that they give any thought to a remedy, who count their evils in the place of virtues? Therefore, as much as you can, convict yourself, inquire into yourself; first perform the part of accuser, then of judge, last of intercessor. Sometimes give yourself offense. Farewell.

Quidam vitiis gloriantur; tu existimas aliquid de remedio cogitare, qui mala sua virtutum loco numerant? Ideo quantum potes, te ipse coargue, inquire in te; accusatoris primum partibus fungere, deinde iudicis, novissime deprecatoris. Aliquando te offende. Vale.

You ask about our Marcellinus and wish to know what he is doing. He comes to us rarely, for no other reason than that he is afraid to hear the truth, from which danger he is now safe. For it must be spoken to no one but a man who will listen. Hence about Diogenes, and no less about the other Cynics, who used a promiscuous freedom and admonished all they met, it is wont to be doubted whether they ought to have done so.

De Marcellino nostro quaeris et vis scire, quid agat. Raro ad nos venit, non ulla alia ex causa quam quod audire verum timet, a quo periculo iam abest. Nulli enim nisi audituro dicendum est. Ideo de Diogene nec minus de aliis Cynicis, qui libertate promiscua usi sunt et obvios monuerunt, dubitari solet, an hoc facere debuerint.

For what if someone should scold the deaf, or those dumb by nature or by disease? "Why," you say, "should I spare my words? They cost nothing. I cannot know whether I shall profit the man I admonish; but this I know, that I shall profit someone if I admonish many. The hand must be scattering. It cannot be that the man who tries many things does not sometimes succeed."

Quid enim, si quis surdos obiurget aut natura morbove mutos? Quare, inquis, verbis parcam? Gratuita sunt. Non possum scire, an ei profuturus sim, quem admoneo; illud scio, alicui me profuturum si multos admonuero. Spargenda manus est. Non potest fieri, ut non aliquando succedat multa temptanti.

This, my Lucilius, I do not think a great man should do; his authority is watered down and has not enough weight with those whom he might correct, were it less worn smooth. The archer ought not to hit sometimes, but to miss sometimes. That is no art which comes to its effect by chance. Wisdom is an art; let it aim at the sure mark, let it choose those who will make progress, let it withdraw from those it has despaired of, yet not abandon them quickly, and in despair itself let it try the last remedies.

Hoc, mi Lucili, non existimo magno viro faciendum; diluitur eius auctoritas nec habet apud eos satis ponderis, quos posset minus obsolefacta corrigere. Sagittarius non aliquando ferire debet, sed aliquando deerrare. Non est ars, quae ad effectum casu venit. Sapientia ars est; certum petat, eligat profecturos, ab is, quos desperavit, recedat, non tamen cito relinquat et in ipsa desperatione extrema remedia temptet.

Our Marcellinus I do not yet despair of. Even now he can be saved, but only if a hand is held out to him quickly. There is indeed a danger that he may drag down the one who holds it out; there is a great force of talent in him, but already inclining to the crooked. Nonetheless I will go to meet this danger and will dare to show him his own evils.

Marcellinum nostrum ego nondum despero. Etiamnunc servari potest, sed si cito illi manus porrigitur. Est quidem periculum, ne porrigentem trahat; magna in illo ingenii vis est, sed iam tendentis in pravum. Nihilominus adibo hoc periculum et audebo illi mala sua ostendere.

He will do what he is wont to do; he will call up those witticisms that can draw a laugh even from mourners, and will jest first at himself, then at us. He will forestall everything I am going to say. He will ransack our schools and cast at the philosophers their largesses, their mistresses, their gluttony. He will show me one in adultery, another in the cookshop, another at court.

Faciet quod solet; advocabit illas facetias, quae risum evocare lugentibus possunt, et in se primum, deinde in nos iocabitur. Omnia, quae dicturus sum, occupabit. Scrutabitur scholas nostras et obiciet philosophis congiaria, amicas, gulam. Ostendet mihi alium in adulterio, alium in popina, alium in aula.

He will show me Aristo, the philosopher of Marcus Lepidus, who used to lecture while being carried in his litter; for he had taken that time for publishing his works. When someone asked about his school, Scaurus said: "A Peripatetic, at any rate, he is not." And when Julius Graecinus, an excellent man, was consulted about the same fellow, what he thought, he said, "I cannot tell you; for I do not know what he does on foot," as though he were being asked about a chariot-fighter.

Ostendet mihi M. Lepidi philosophum Aristonem, qui in gestatione disserebat. Hoc enim ad edendas operas tempus acceperat. De cuius secta cum quaereretur, Scaurus ait: Utique Peripateticus non est. De eodem cum consuleretur Iulius Graecinus, vir egregius, quid sentiret, Non possum, inquit, tibi dicere; nescio enim, quid de gradu faciat, tamquam de essedario interrogaretur.

These mountebanks, who would more honorably have neglected philosophy than they sell it, he will thrust in my face. Yet I have resolved to endure the affronts; let him move me to laughter, and I perhaps will move him to tears, or, if he persists in laughing, I will rejoice, as one rejoices amid evils, that a cheerful kind of madness has fallen to him. But that cheerfulness is not long. Observe; you will see the same men, within a little time, laugh most fiercely and rage most fiercely.

Hos mihi circulatores, qui philosophiam honestius neglexissent quam vendunt, in faciem ingeret. Constitui tamen contumelias perpeti; moveat ille mihi risum, ego fortasse illi lacrimas movebo, aut si ridere perseverabit, gaudebo tamquam in malis, quod illi genus insaniae hilare contigerit. Sed non est ista hilaritas longa. Observa; videbis eosdem intra exiguum tempus acerrime ridere et acerrime rabere.

My purpose is to attack him and to show how much more he was worth when he seemed to many worth less. Even if I do not cut out his vices, I will check them; they will not cease, but they will intermit. And perhaps they will even cease, if they form the habit of intermitting. This very thing is not to be disdained, since indeed for the gravely afflicted a good remission stands in the place of health.

Propositum est adgredi illum et ostendere, quanto pluris fuerit, quom multis minoris videretur. Vitia eius etiam si non excidero, inhibebo; non desinent, sed intermittent. Fortasse autem et desinent, si intermittendi consuetudinem fecerint. Non est hoc ipsum fastidiendum, quoniam quidem graviter adfectis sanitatis loco est bona remissio.

While I prepare myself for him, do you meanwhile, who can, who understand from where to where you have escaped, and, guessing from that how far you are yet to escape, compose your character, raise your spirit, stand firm against the things you dread. Do not count those who cause you fear. Would not a man seem foolish who feared a multitude in a place where the passage is for one at a time? Just so, there is no approach for many to your death, though many threaten it. So has nature arranged it: one man will snatch away your breath, as one man gave it.

Dum me illi paro, tu interim, qui potes, qui intellegis, unde quo evaseris, et ex eo suspicans, quousque sis evasurus, compone mores tuos, attolle animum, adversus formidata consiste. Numerare eos noli, qui tibi metum faciunt. Nonne videatur stultus, si quis multitudinem eo loco timeat, per quem transitus singulis est? Aeque ad tuam mortem multis aditus non est, licet illam multi minentur. Sic istuc natura disposuit: spiritum tibi tam unus eripiet quam unus dedit.

If you had any shame, you would have remitted me the last installment. But not even I will conduct myself meanly at the close of my debt, and I will fling at you what I owe. "I have never wished to please the people. For what I know, the people do not approve; what the people approve, I do not know."

Si pudorem haberes, ultimam mihi pensionem remisisses. Sed ne ego quidem me sordide geram in finem aeris alieni et tibi quod debeo, inpingam. Numquam volui populo placere. Nam quae ego scio, non probat populus; quae probat populus, ego nescio.

"Whose is this?" you say, as though you did not know whom I am commanding: Epicurus’s. But this same thing all of them, from every house, will cry out to you, Peripatetics, Academics, Stoics, Cynics. For who that pleases virtue can please the people? It is by bad arts that the people’s favor is sought. You must make yourself like them. They will not approve you unless they recognize you. But it matters much more how you seem to yourself than how you seem to others. The love of the base can be won only by base means.

Quis hoc? inquis, tamquam nescias, cui imperem; Epicurus. Sed idem hoc omnes tibi ex omni domo conclamabunt, Peripatetici, Academici, Stoici, Cynici. Quis enim placere populo potest, cui placet virtus? Malis artibus popularis favor quaeritur. Similem te illis facias oportet. Non probabunt, nisi agnoverint. Multo autem ad rem magis pertinet, qualis tibi videaris quam qualis aliis. Conciliari nisi turpi ratione amor turpium non potest.

What then will that philosophy furnish, praised and to be preferred to all arts and affairs? This, surely: that you would rather please yourself than the people, that you weigh judgments, not count them, that you live without fear of gods and men, that you either conquer evils or end them. But if I see you celebrated by the favorable voices of the crowd, if at your entrance shouting and applause break out, the trappings of a pantomime, if throughout the whole city the women and the boys praise you, why should I not pity you, since I know what road leads to that favor? Farewell.

Quid ergo illa laudata et omnibus praeferenda artibus rebusque philosophia praestabit? Scilicet ut malis tibi placere quam populo, ut aestimes iudicia, non numeres, ut sine metu deorum hominumque vivas, ut aut vincas mala aut finias. Ceterum, si te videro celebrem secundis vocibus vulgi, si intrante te clamor et plausus, pantomimica ornamenta, obstrepuerint, si tota civitate te feminae puerique laudaverint, quidni ego tui miserear, cum sciam, quae via ad istum favorem ferat? Vale.

I have seen Aufidius Bassus, that excellent man, broken, wrestling with his age. But by now the weight bears him down more than he can be raised against it; old age has settled on him with its whole and total mass. You know he was always of a frail and dried-out body. For a long time he held it together — or, to put it more truly, kept it going; then all at once it gave way.

Bassum Aufidium, virum optimum, vidi quassum, aetati obluctantem. Sed iam plus illum degravat quam quod possit attolli; magno senectus et universo pondere incubuit. Scis illum semper infirmi corporis et exsucti fuisse. Diu illud continuit et, ut verius dicam, continuavit; subito defecit.

Just as in a ship that is taking on bilge-water one leak or another can be stopped, but when it has begun to loosen and give way in many places at once there is no saving the vessel as it gapes apart; so in an aged body the weakness can, up to a point, be held up and shored. But when, as in a rotting building, every joint is pulling open, and while one is braced another splits, then it is time to look about for how you may get out.

Quemadmodum in nave, quae sentinam trahit, uni rimae aut alteri obsistitur, ubi plurimis locis laxari coepit et cedere, succurri non potest navigio dehiscenti; ita in senili corpore aliquatenus inbecillitas sustineri et fulciri potest. Ubi tamquam in putri aedificio omnis unctura diducitur, et dum alia excipitur, alia discinditur, circumspiciendum est, quomodo exeas.

Yet our Bassus is brisk in spirit. This is what philosophy supplies: to be cheerful in the sight of death, and, in whatever state the body may be, brave and glad, not failing though the body fails. A great helmsman sails on even with a torn sail, and, if he has been stripped of his rigging, still fits what remains of the vessel to the course. So our Bassus does, and with the spirit and the face he looks upon his own end with which you would think a man too unconcerned to look upon another’s.

Bassus tamen noster alacer animo est. Hoc philosophia praestat, in conspectu mortis hilarem et in quocumque corporis habitu fortem laetumque nec deficientem, quamvis deficiatur. Magnus gubernator et scisso navigat velo, et, si exarmavit, tamen reliquias navigii aptat ad cursum. Hoc facit Bassus noster et eo animo vultuque finem suum spectat, quo alienum spectare nimis securi putares.

This is a great thing, Lucilius, and long in the learning: when that inescapable hour arrives, to go with an even mind. Other kinds of death are mixed with hope: the disease lets up, the fire is put out, the collapse sets down unharmed those it seemed about to crush; the sea has thrown back uninjured, by the very force with which it was sucking them in, the men it had swallowed; the soldier has called his sword back from the very neck of the man about to die. He whom old age leads to death has nothing to hope for; this alone admits no reprieve. By no other way do men die more gently — but by none more slowly.

Magna res est, Lucili, haec et diu discenda, cum adventat hora illa inevitabilis, aequo animo abire. Alia genera mortis spei mixta sunt: desinit morbus, incendium extinguitur, ruina quos videbatur oppressura deposuit; mare quos hauserat, eadem vi, qua sorbebat, eiecit incolumes; gladium miles ab ipsa perituri cervice revocavit. Nil habet quod speret, quem senectus ducit ad mortem. Huic uni intercedi non potest. Nullo genere homines mollius moriuntur sed nec diutius.

Our Bassus seemed to me to be following himself to the grave, laying himself out, and living as though he had outlived himself, and bearing wisely the loss of his own self. For he speaks much about death, and works hard at it, to persuade us that if there is anything of discomfort or fear in this business, the fault is the dying man’s, not death’s; that there is no more trouble in death itself than there is after it.

Bassus noster videbatur mihi prosequi se et conponere et vivere tamquam superstes sibi et sapienter ferre desiderium sui. Nam de morte multa loquitur et id agit sedulo, ut nobis persuadeat, si quid incommodi aut metus in hoc negotio est, morientis vitium esse, non mortis; non magis in ipsa quicquam esse molestiae quam post ipsam.

And he is as mad who fears what he will not suffer as he who fears what he will not feel. Or does anyone believe this will come to pass — that the very thing through which nothing is felt should itself be felt? "Death, therefore," he says, "stands so far outside every evil that it stands outside all fear of evils."

Tam demens autem est, qui timet, quod non est passurus, quam qui timet, quod non est sensurus. An quisquam hoc futurum credit, ut per quam nihil sentiatur, ea sentiatur? Ergo, inquit, mors adeo extra omne malum est, ut sit extra omnem malorum metum.

These things I know have often been said and must often be said; but they did me no equal good either when I read them, or when I heard them from men who declared them not to be feared while they themselves were far from any fear of them. This man, though, carried the most authority with me, since he was speaking of a death close at hand.

Haec ego scio et saepe dicta et saepe dicenda, sed neque cum legerem, aeque mihi profuerunt, neque cum audirem iis dicentibus, qui negabant timenda, a quorum metu aberant; hic vero plurimum apud me auctoritatis habuit, cum loqueretur de morte vicina.

For I will say what I think: I hold the man who is in death itself to be braver than the man who is around death. For death, once brought near, has given even to the untrained the spirit not to shun the unavoidable. So the gladiator, most timid through the whole fight, offers his throat to his adversary and guides the wandering sword to himself. But that death which is near and bound in any case to come demands a slow, sustained firmness of mind — rarer, and furnished by none but the wise man.

Dicam enim quid sentiam: puto fortiorem esse eum, qui in ipsa morte est quam qui circa mortem. Mors enim admota etiam inperitis animum dedit non vitandi inevitabilia. Sic gladiator tota pugna timidissimus iugulum adversario praestat et errantem gladium sibi adtemperat. At illa, quae in propinquo est utique ventura, desiderat lentam animi firmitatem, quae est rarior nec potest nisi a sapiente praestari.

And so I listened to him most gladly, as one passing sentence upon death and reporting what its nature is, like a thing inspected at closer range. More credit, I think, he would have with you, more weight, if a man had come back to life and told from experience that there is no evil in death; but what disturbance the approach of death brings, those will tell you best who have stood beside it, who have both seen it coming and received it.

Libentissime itaque illum audiebam quasi ferentem de morte sententiam et qualis esset eius natura velut propius inspectae indicantem. Plus, ut puto, fidei haberet apud te, plus ponderis, si quis revixisset et in morte nihil mali esse narraret expertus; accessus mortis quam perturbationem adferat, optime tibi hi dicent, qui secundum illam steterunt, qui venientem et viderunt et receperunt.

Among these you may count Bassus, who would not have us deceived. He says the man who fears death is as foolish as the man who fears old age. For as old age follows youth, so death follows old age. He who is unwilling to die was unwilling to live; for life was given on the condition of death, and it is the road to death. To fear death, then, is the mark of a madman: for what is certain is awaited, only the doubtful is dreaded!

Inter hos Bassum licet numeres, qui nos decipi noluit. Is ait tam stultum esse, qui mortem timeat, quam qui senectutem. Nam quemadmodum senectus adulescentiam sequitur, ita mors senectutem. Vivere noluit, qui mori non vult. Vita enim cum exceptione mortis data est; ad hanc itur. Quam ideo timere dementis est, quia certa expectantur, dubia metuuntur!

Death has a necessity even-handed and unconquerable. Who can complain that he is in a condition in which no one is not? And the first part of fairness is equality. But it is needless now to plead nature’s cause, since she willed our law to be no other than her own: whatever she has composed she dissolves, and whatever she dissolves she composes again.

Mors necessitatem habet aequam et invictam. Quis queri potest in ea condicione se esse, in qua nemo non est? Prima autem pars est aequitatis aequalitas. Sed nunc supervacuum est naturae causam agere, quae non aliam voluit legem nostram esse quam suam; quicquid conposuit, resolvit, et quicquid resolvit, conponit iterum.

But now, if it has been any man’s lot that old age dismissed him gently — not torn suddenly from life, but drawn off bit by bit — oh, it well becomes him to give thanks to all the gods, that, sated, he has been brought to the rest a man needs, welcome to the weary. You see some men who long for death, and indeed more than life is usually prayed for. I do not know which I should judge to give us the greater spirit — those who demand death, or those who await it cheerful and at peace — since the one comes sometimes of frenzy and a sudden indignation, while this calm comes of a settled judgment. A man comes to death in anger; but death as it comes no one receives cheerfully unless he has long composed himself for it.

Iam vero si cui contigit, ut illum senectus leniter emitteret non repente avolsum vitae, sed minutatim subductum; o ne illum agere gratias dis omnibus decet, quod satiatus ad requiem homini necessariam, lasso gratam perductus est. Vides quosdam optantes mortem, et quidem magis quam rogari solet vita. Nescio utros existimem maiorem nobis animum dare, qui deposcunt mortem an qui hilares eam quietique opperiuntur, quoniam illud ex rabie interdum ac repentina indignatione fit, haec ex iudicio certo tranquillitas est. Venit aliquis ad mortem iratus; mortem venientem nemo hilaris excipit, nisi qui se ad illam diu composuerat.

I confess, then, that for several reasons I came more often to a man dear to me, to learn whether I should find him each time the same — whether the vigor of his mind diminished along with the strength of his body. But it kept growing in him, the way the charioteers’ joy is wont to show more plainly when on the seventh lap they near the palm of victory.

Fateor ergo ad hominem mihi carum ex pluribus me causis frequentius venisse, ut scirem, an illum totiens eundem invenirem, numquid cum corporis viribus minueretur animi vigor. Qui sic crescebat illi, quomodo manifestior notari solet agitatorum laetitia, cum septimo spatio palmae adpropinquant.

He used to say — following the precepts of Epicurus — first, that he hoped there was no pain in that last gasp; but that if there were, there was some comfort in its very brevity, since no pain that is great is long. And besides, that even in the very wrenching-apart of soul and body, should it come with torment, this would relieve him: that after that pain he could feel no pain. He did not doubt, moreover, that an old man’s breath was already on his very lips, and would be parted from the body by no great force. A fire that has caught hold of fuel that feeds it must be put out with water and sometimes by pulling the building down; but one that runs short of nourishment sinks down of its own accord.

Dicebat quidem ille Epicuri praeceptis obsequens, primum sperare se nullum dolorem esse in illo extremo anhelitu; si tamen esset, habere aliquantum in ipsa brevitate solacii. Nullum enim dolorem longum esse, qui magnus est. Ceterum succursurum sibi etiam in ipsa distractione animi corporisque, si cum cruciatu id fieret, post illum dolorem se dolere non posse. Non dubitare autem se, quin senilis anima in primis labris esset nec magna vi distraheretur a corpore. Ignis, qui alentem materiam occupavit, aqua et interdum ruina extinguendus est; ille, qui alimentis deficitur, sua sponte subsidit.

I hear these things gladly, my Lucilius — not as anything new, but as one brought to the very scene. What then? Have I not watched many breaking off their lives? I have indeed seen them; but those carry more weight with me who come to death without hatred of life, who let it in rather than drag it on.

Libenter haec, mi Lucili, audio non tamquam nova, sed tamquam in rem praesentem perductus. Quid ergo? Non multos spectavi abrumpentes vitam? Ego vero vidi, sed plus momenti apud me habent, qui ad mortem veniunt sine odio vitae et admittunt illam, non adtrahunt.

This too he would say: that the torment we feel is of our own making, in that we tremble just when we believe death to be near us. But near to whom is it not — ready in every place and at every moment? "Let us consider, then," he said, "when some cause of dying seems to be drawing near, how much nearer are others that go unfeared." An enemy was threatening a man with death — and an attack of indigestion got there first.

Illud quidem aiebat tormentum nostra nos sentire opera, quod tunc trepidamus, cum prope a nobis esse credimus mortem. A quo enim non prope est, parata omnibus locis omnibusque momentis? Sed consideremus, inquit, tunc, cum aliqua causa moriendi videtur accedere, quanto aliae propiores sint, quae non timentur. Hostis alicui mortem minabatur, hanc cruditas occupavit.

If we are willing to sort out the causes of our fear, we shall find that some are real and others only seem so. It is not death we fear, but the thought of death; for from death itself we are always exactly as far. So, if death is to be feared, it is to be feared always — for what stretch of time is exempt from death?

Si distinguere voluerimus causas metus nostri, inveniemus alias esse, alias videri. Non mortem timemus, sed cogitationem mortis. Ab ipsa enim semper tantundem absumus. Ita si timenda mors est, semper timenda est. Quod enim morti tempus exemptum est?

But I ought to be afraid you will hate letters this long worse than death itself. So I will make an end. You, though — that you may never fear death, think of it always. Farewell.

Sed vereri debeo, ne tam longas epistulas peius quam mortem oderis. Itaque finem faciam. Tu tamen mortem ut numquam timeas, semper cogita. Vale.

I recognize my Lucilius; he begins to show the man he promised. Follow that impulse of spirit by which you were making for all that is best, trampling on the goods of the crowd. I do not ask you to become greater or better than you were laboring to be. Your foundations have taken up much ground; only accomplish as much as you attempted, and work through the things you carried with you in your mind.

Agnosco Lucilium meum; incipit, quem promiserat, exhibere. Sequere illum impetum animi, quo ad optima quaeque calcatis popularibus bonis ibas. Non desidero maiorem melioremque te fieri quam moliebaris. Fundamenta tua multum loci occupaverunt; tantum effice, quantum conatus es, et illa quae tecum in animo tulisti, tracta.

In sum, you will be wise if you stop up your ears — and it is not enough to plug them with wax; you need a stiffer stopping than they say Ulysses used on his comrades. The voice that was feared was alluring, yet it was not a whole people’s; but this voice, which is to be feared, sounds about you not from a single crag but from every quarter of the earth. So sail past not one place suspect for its treacherous pleasure, but all the cities. Make yourself deaf to those who love you most: with good intent they pray for your harm. And if you wish to be happy, pray to the gods that none of the things they wish for you may come to pass.

Ad summam sapiens eris, si cluseris aures, quibus ceram parum est obdere; firmiore spissamento opus est quam in sociis usum Vlixem ferunt. Illa vox, quae timebatur, erat blanda, non tamen publica, at haec, quae timenda est, non ex uno scopulo, sed ex omni terrarum parte circumsonat. Praetervehere itaque non unum locum insidiosa voluptate suspectum, sed omnes urbes. Surdum te amantissimis tuis praesta; bono animo mala precantur. Et si esse vis felix, deos ora, ne quid tibi ex his, quae optantur, eveniat.

Those are not goods which these people want heaped upon you. There is one good, the cause and the bulwark of the happy life: to trust in oneself. But this cannot be attained unless toil is held in contempt and reckoned among the things that are neither good nor evil. For it cannot be that any one thing is now evil, now good, now light and bearable, now to be dreaded.

Non sunt ista bona, quae in te isti volunt congeri; unum bonum est, quod beatae vitae causa et firmamentum est, sibi fidere. Hoc autem contingere non potest, nisi contemptus est labor et in eorum numero habitus, quae neque bona sunt neque mala. Fieri enim non potest, ut una ulla res modo mala sit, modo bona, modo levis et perferenda, modo expavescenda.

Toil is not a good. What then is the good? The contempt of toil. And so I would blame those who labor to no purpose. But those who strain toward what is honorable — the harder they bend to it, the less they let themselves be beaten or pull up short, the more I will approve them and cry out: "So much the better! Rise, draw breath, and master that slope, if you can, in a single breath!"

Labor bonum non est. Quid ergo est bonum? Laboris contemptio. Itaque in vanum operosos culpaverim. Rursus ad honesta nitentes, quanto magis incubuerint minusque sibi vinci ac strigare permiserint, adprobabo et clamabo: Tanto melior, surge et inspira et clivum istum uno, si potes, spiritu exsupera.

Toil feeds noble spirits. There is no reason, then, to pick out of that old prayer of your parents what you would have fall to you, what you should wish for; and for a man already carried through the greatest things it is wholly shameful to be still wearying the gods. What need is there of prayers? Make yourself happy. And you will do so if you understand that those things are good to which virtue is joined, and base those to which wickedness is bound. As nothing is bright without an admixture of light, nothing black except what holds darkness or has drawn something dim into itself; as nothing is hot without the help of fire, nothing cold without air; so it is the partnership of virtue and of wickedness that makes things honorable and base.

Generosos animos labor nutrit. Non est ergo, quod ex illo voto vetere parentum tuorum eligas, quid contingere tibi velis, quid optes; et in totum iam per maxima acto viro turpe est etiamnunc deos fatigare. Quid votis opus est? Fac te ipse felicem. Facies autem, si intellexeris bona esse, quibus admixta virtus est, turpia, quibus malitia coniuncta est. Quemadmodum sine mixtura lucis nihil splendidum est, nihil atrum, nisi quod tenebras habet aut aliquid in se traxit obscuri, quemadmodum sine adiutorio ignis nihil calidum est, nihil sine aere frigidum; ita honesta et turpia virtutis ac malitiae societas efficit.

What then is the good? Knowledge of things. What is evil? Ignorance of things. That prudent and practiced man will, as the occasion calls, reject this and choose that; but he neither fears what he rejects nor marvels at what he has chosen — provided his spirit is great and unconquered. I forbid you to be cast down and pressed low. If you do not refuse toil, that is too little: ask for it.

Quid ergo est bonum? Rerum scientia. Quid malum est? Rerum imperitia. Ille prudens atque artifex pro tempore quaeque repellet aut eliget. Sed nec quae repellit timet, nec miratur quae elegit, si modo magnus illi et invictus animus est. Summitti te ac deprimi veto. Laborem si non recuses, parum est; posce.

"What then?" you say. "Is toil that is frivolous and superfluous, called forth by mean causes, not an evil?" No more than the toil spent on fine things — for the endurance itself belongs to the mind, which urges itself toward what is hard and harsh and says: "Why do you hold back? It is not for a man to fear sweat."

Quid ergo? inquis, labor frivolus et supervacuus et quem humiles causae evocaverunt, non est malus? Non magis quam ille, qui pulchris rebus inpenditur, quoniam animi est ipsa tolerantia, quae se ad dura et aspera hortatur ac dicit: Quid cessas? Non est viri timere sudorem.

Let this be added too, to make virtue complete: an evenness and a steady tenor of life, consonant with itself through all things — which cannot be unless one attains the knowledge of things and the art by which things human and divine are known. This is the highest good. If you seize it, you begin to be the gods’ companion, not their suppliant.

Huc et illud accedat, ut perfecta virtus sit, aequalitas ac tenor vitae per omnia consonans sibi, quod non potest esse, nisi rerum scientia contingit et ars, per quam humana ac divina noscantur. Hoc est summum bonum. Quod si occupas, incipis deorum socius esse, non supplex.

"How," you say, "does one arrive there?" Not over the Pennine or the Graian pass, nor through the wastes of Candavia; you need not face the Syrtes, nor Scylla, nor Charybdis — all of which you have crossed for the price of a paltry little procuratorship. The road is safe, it is pleasant; nature has equipped you for it. She gave you gifts which, if you do not forsake them, will let you rise the equal of a god.

Quomodo, inquis, isto pervenitur? Non per Poeninum Graiumve montem nec per deserta Candaviae, nec Syrtes tibi nec Scylla aut Charybdis adeundae sunt, quae tamen omnia transisti procuratiunculae pretio; tutum iter est, iucundum est, ad quod natura te instruxit. Dedit tibi illa, quae si non deserueris, par deo surges.

But money will not make you the equal of a god: a god has nothing. The bordered toga will not: a god is naked. Fame will not, nor the showing-off of yourself, nor a name sent abroad among the peoples: no one knows a god, many think ill of him, and go unpunished. Nor will a throng of slaves carrying your litter along the roads of the city and abroad: that god, the greatest and most powerful, himself carries all things. Not even beauty and strength can make you happy: none of these withstands old age.

Parem autem te deo pecunia non faciet; deus nihil habet. Praetexta non faciet; deus nudus est. Fama non faciet nec ostentatio tui et in populos nominis dimissa notitia; nemo novit deum, multi de illo male existimant, et inpune. Non turba servorum lecticam tuam per itinera urbana ac peregrina portantium; deus ille maximus potentissimusque ipse vehit omnia. Ne forma quidem et vires beatum te facere possunt; nihil horum patitur vetustatem.

and make yourself, too, worthy of a god.

et te quoque dignum Finge deo.

I make inquiry about you and question everyone who comes from that region: what you are doing, where and with whom you are spending your time. You cannot fool me; I am with you. Live as though I were going to hear what you do — indeed, as though I were going to see it. You ask what most delights me of the things I hear about you? That I hear nothing; that most of those I question do not know what you are doing.

Inquiro de te et ab omnibus sciscitor, qui ex ista regione veniunt, quid agas, ubi et cum quibus moreris. Verba dare non potes; tecum sum. Sic vive, tamquam quid facias auditurus sim, immo tamquam visurus. Quaeris quid me maxime ex iis, quae de te audio, delectet? Quod nihil audio, quod plerique ex his, quos interrogo, nesciunt quid agas.

This is what is wholesome: not to consort with men unlike you and craving different things. I am confident, indeed, that you cannot be twisted aside and will hold to your purpose, even if a crowd of tempters circles round you. What then? I do not fear that they will change you; I fear that they will hold you up. And much harm is done even by one who only delays you, especially in a life so brief, which we make briefer by our inconstancy, making over and over a fresh beginning of it. We break it into little pieces and tear it apart.

Hoc est salutare, non conversari dissimilibus et diversa cupientibus. Habeo quidem fiduciam non posse te detorqueri mansurumque in proposito, etiam si sollicitantium turba circumeat. Quid ergo est? Non timeo, ne mutent te, timeo, ne inpediant. Multum autem nocet etiam qui moratur, utique in tanta brevitate vitae, quam breviorem inconstantia facimus aliud eius subinde atque aliud facientes initium. Diducimus illam in particulas ac lancinamus.

Hurry then, dearest Lucilius, and think how much you would add to your speed if an enemy were pressing at your back, if you suspected a horseman bearing down and treading on the heels of the fleeing. It is happening — you are being pressed. Quicken your pace and escape; bring yourself to safety, and consider from time to time how fine a thing it is to consummate one’s life before death, and then to await secure the remaining portion of one’s time, claiming nothing more for oneself, settled in possession of the happy life — which is made no happier by being made longer.

Propera ergo, Lucili carissime, et cogita quantum additurus celeritati fueris, si a tergo hostis instaret, si equitem adventare suspicareris ac fugientium premere vestigia. Fit hoc, premeris; accelera et evade, perduc te in tutum et subinde considera, quam pulchra res sit consummare vitam ante mortem, deinde expectare securum reliquam temporis sui partem, nihil sibi, in possessione beatae vitae positum, quae beatior non fit, si longior.

Oh, when will you see that time when you will know that time has nothing to do with you — when you will be calm and at peace and careless of tomorrow, in the fullest satiety of yourself! Do you wish to know what it is that makes men greedy for the future? No one has come into possession of himself. And so your parents wished other things for you; but I, on the contrary, wish you the contempt of all those things of which they wished you abundance. Their prayers plunder many to enrich you: whatever they transfer to you must be taken from someone else.

O quando illud videbis tempus, quo scies tempus ad te non pertinere, quo tranquillus placidusque eris et crastini neglegens ut in summa tui satietate! Vis scire, quid sit, quod faciat homines avidos futuri? Nemo sibi contigit. Optaverunt itaque tibi alia parentes tui; sed ego contra omnium tibi eorum contemptum opto, quorum illi copiam. Vota illorum multos conpilant, ut te locupletent. Quicquid ad te transferunt, alicui detrahendum est.

I wish you the command of yourself — that your mind, harried by wandering thoughts, may at last halt and be steady; that it may please itself, and, the true goods once understood (which, the moment they are understood, are possessed), may have no need of added years. He at last has surmounted necessity, discharged and free, who lives with his life already complete. Farewell.

Opto tibi tui facultatem, ut vagis cogitationibus agitata mens tandem resistat et certa sit, ut placeat sibi et intellectis veris bonis, quae, simul intellecta sunt, possidentur, aetatis adiectione non egeat. Ille demum necessitates supergressus est et exauctoratus ac liber, qui vivit vita peracta. Vale.

You want, for these letters too as for the earlier ones, some sayings of our leading men to be appended. They were not busied with little flowers; the whole texture of their writing is manly. You may be sure there is unevenness wherever the parts that stand out are the ones worth noting. A single tree is no cause for wonder where the whole forest has risen to the same height.

Desideras his quoque epistulis sicut prioribus adscribi aliquas voces nostrorum procerum. Non fuerunt circa flosculos occupati; totus contextus illorum virilis est. Inaequalitatem scias esse, ubi quae eminent, notabilia sunt. Non est admirationi una arbor, ubi in eandem altitudinem tota silva surrexit.

Poems are crammed with sayings of this sort, and so are histories. So I do not want you to think they belong to Epicurus: they are common property, and ours above all. But in him they are the more remarked, because they come only now and then, because they are unexpected, because it is a wonder that anything brave should be said by a man who has professed softness. For so most people judge. With me Epicurus is brave as well, for all his long sleeves. Courage and energy and a mind ready for war fall to the Persian as readily as to the man girt high.

Eiusmodi vocibus referta sunt carmina, refertae historiae. Itaque nolo illas Epicuri existimes esse; publicae sunt et maxime nostrae. Sed in illo magis adnotantur, quia rarae interim interveniunt, quia inexpectatae, quia mirum est fortiter aliquid dici ab homine mollitiam professo. Ita enim plerique iudicant. Apud me Epicurus est et fortis, licet manuleatus sit. Fortitudo et industria et ad bellum prompta mens tam in Persas quam in alte cinctos cadit.

There is no reason, then, for you to demand excerpts and pat repetitions; what with other writers is excerpted is, with ours, continuous. So we have none of those eye-catchers hung in the shop window, nor do we cheat the buyer, who will find nothing, once he has come in, beyond what was hung out at the front. We let people take their samples from wherever they please.

Non est ergo quod exigas excerpta et repetita; continuum est apud nostros quicquid apud alios excerpitur. Non habemus itaque ista ocliferia nec emptorem decipimus nihil inventurum, cum intraverit, praeter illa, quae in fronte suspensa sunt. Ipsis permittimus, unde velint sumere exemplaria.

It is the poor man who counts his flock.

Pauperis est numerare pecus.

So lay aside that hope of being able to taste the genius of the greatest men in summary; they must be looked at whole, handled whole. The thing is worked out, and the work of genius is woven together along its own lines, from which nothing can be drawn out without ruin. Nor do I object to your considering the limbs one by one, provided it is within the man himself. She is not beautiful whose leg or arm is praised, but she whose whole appearance has stolen admiration away from the single parts.

Quare depone istam spem, posse te summatim degustare ingenia maximorum virorum; tota tibi inspicienda sunt, tota tractanda. Res geritur et per lineamenta sua ingenii opus nectitur, ex quo nihil subduci sine ruina potest. Nec recuso, quo minus singula membra, dummodo in ipso homine, consideres. Non est formonsa, cuius crus laudatur aut brachium, sed illa, cuius universa facies admirationem partibus singulis abstulit.

Still, if you insist, I will not deal with you so stingily; it shall be done with a full hand. There is a huge crowd of them lying about everywhere; they will need to be picked up, not gathered. For they do not drop out one by one; they flow. They are continuous and woven into one another. And I do not doubt they do much good for those still raw and listening from outside; for single sayings sink in more easily when they are bounded and enclosed in the manner of a verse.

Si tamen exegeris, non tam mendice tecum agam, sed plena manu fiet; ingens eorum turba est passim iacentium, sumenda erunt, non colligenda. Non enim excidunt, sed fluunt. Perpetua et inter se contexta sunt. Nec dubito, quin multum conferant rudibus adhuc et extrinsecus auscultantibus; facilius enim singula insidunt circumscripta et carminis modo inclusa.

That is why we give boys maxims to learn by heart, and those the Greeks call chriae, because a boy’s mind, which cannot yet take in more, can grasp them. But for a man of settled progress it is shameful to be snatching at little flowers, to prop himself on a few best-known sayings and stand by his memory; by now let him lean on himself. Let him say such things, not hold them by rote. For it is shameful in an old man, or one who looks toward old age, to be wise out of a notebook. "This Zeno said"; and you, what? "This Cleanthes said"; and you, what? How long will you march under another’s command? Take command, and say something to be handed down to memory. Bring out something of your own as well.

Ideo pueris et sententias ediscendas damus et has quas Graeci chrias vocant, quia conplecti illas puerilis animus potest, qui plus adhuc non capit. Certi profectus viro captare flosculos turpe est et fulcire se notissimis ac paucissimis vocibus et memoria stare; sibi iam innitatur. Dicat ista, non teneat. Turpe est enim seni aut prospicienti senectutem ex commentario sapere. Hoc Zenon dixit; tu quid? Hoc Cleanthes; tu quid? Quousque sub alio moveris? Impera et dic, quod memoriae tradatur. Aliquid et de tuo profer.

And so all those men — never authors, always interpreters, hiding under another’s shadow — I judge to have nothing noble in them, since they never dared, even once, to do what they had so long been learning. They have exercised their memory on what belongs to others. But it is one thing to remember, another to know. To remember is to keep safe a thing entrusted to the memory. To know, on the contrary, is to make each thing your own, and not to hang on the model and keep looking back to the master.

Omnes itaque istos, numquam auctores, semper interpretes sub aliena umbra latentes, nihil existimo habere generosi, numquam ausos aliquando facere, quod diu didicerant. Memoriam in alienis exercuerunt. Aliud autem est meminisse, aliud scire. Meminisse est rem commissam memoriae custodire. At contra scire est et sua facere quaeque nec ad exemplar pendere et totiens respicere ad magistrum.

"This Zeno said, this Cleanthes." Let there be some difference between you and the book. How long will you be a learner? By now, teach as well. Why should I have to hear what I can read? "The living voice," he says, "counts for much." Not, surely, this voice that is lent the words of others and serves the office of a clerk.

Hoc dixit Zenon, hoc Cleanthes. Aliquid inter te intersit et librum. Quousque disces? Iam et praecipe. Quid est quare et audiam, quod legere possum? Multum, inquit, viva vox facit. Non quidem haec, quae alienis verbis commodatur et actuari vice fungitur.

Add now that these men, who never come into their own guardianship, follow their predecessors, in the first place, in a matter in which everyone has broken from his predecessor; and in the second place, they follow them in a matter still under inquiry. But nothing will ever be discovered if we rest content with what has been discovered. Besides, he who follows another finds nothing — indeed, does not even look.

Adice nunc quod isti, qui numquam tutelae suae fiunt, primum in ea re secuntur priores, in qua nemo non a priore descivit; deinde in ea re secuntur, quae adhuc quaeritur. Numquam autem invenietur si contenti fuerimus inventis. Praeterea qui alium sequitur, nihil invenit, immo nec quaerit.

What then? Shall I not walk in my predecessors’ footsteps? I will indeed use the old road — but if I find one nearer and more level, I will lay it down myself. Those who stirred these questions before us are not our masters but our guides. The truth lies open to all; it has not yet been taken over. Much of it is left even for those to come. Farewell.

Quid ergo? Non ibo per priorum vestigia? Ego vero utar via vetere, sed si propiorem planioremque invenero, hanc muniam. Qui ante nos ista moverunt, non domini nostri, sed duces sunt. Patet omnibus veritas, nondum est occupata. Multum ex illa etiam futuris relictum est. Vale.

I grow, I exult, I shake off old age and glow warm again, as often as I understand from what you do and write how far you have outstripped yourself — for the crowd you had left behind long ago. If a tree brought to fruit delights the farmer, if the shepherd takes pleasure in the increase of his flock, if no one looks upon his foster-child except to count the boy’s youth as his own — what do you suppose befalls those who have brought up minds, and suddenly see grown to maturity what they shaped while it was tender?

Cresco et exulto et discussa senectute recalesco, quotiens ex iis, quae agis ac scribis, intellego, quantum te ipse, nam turbam olim reliqueras, superieceris. Si agricolam arbor ad fructum perducta delectat, si pastor ex fetu gregis sui capit voluptatem, si alumnum suum nemo aliter intuetur quam ut adulescentiam illius suam iudicet; quid evenire credis iis, qui ingenia educaverunt et quae tenera formaverunt adulta subito vident?

I claim you as mine; you are my work. When I had seen your natural gift, I laid my hand on you, I urged you on, I added the goad and did not let you go slowly but spurred you again and again. And now I do the same — but now I cheer on a runner, and one who cheers me on in turn.

Adsero te mihi; meum opus es. Ego quom vidissem indolem tuam, inieci manum, exhortatus sum, addidi stimulos nec lente ire passus sum, sed subinde incitavi; et nunc idem facio, sed iam currentem hortor et invicem hortantem.

"What else?" you say. "I still want more." In this lies the most — not the way the beginning of a whole work is said to be half of it; this is a matter that stands in the will. And so a great part of goodness is the will to become good. Do you know whom I call good? The perfect man, the complete, whom no force, no necessity could make evil.

Quid aliud? inquis; adhuc volo. In hoc plurimum est, non sic quomodo principia totius operis dimidium occupare dicuntur; ista res animo constat. Itaque pars magna bonitatis est velle fieri bonum. Scis quem bonum dicam? Perfectum, absolutum, quem malum facere nulla vis, nulla necessitas possit.

This man I foresee in you, if you persevere and bend to the work and see to it that all your deeds and words agree with one another and answer to one another and are struck from a single mold. That man’s mind is not set straight whose acts are at odds. Farewell.

Hunc te prospicio, si perseveraveris et incubueris et id egeris, ut omnia facta dictaque tua inter se congruant ac respondeant sibi et una forma percussa sint. Non est huius animus in recto, cuius acta discordant. Vale.

When I ask you so earnestly to study, I am pursuing my own business: I want to have you as a friend, and that cannot fall to me unless you go on cultivating yourself as you have begun. For now you love me, but you are not my friend. What then? Are the two at odds? No — they are unlike. He who is a friend loves; he who loves is not necessarily a friend. And so friendship is always profitable, while love sometimes does harm as well. If for no other reason, make progress for this: that you may learn to love.

Cum te tam valde rogo, ut studeas, meum negotium ago; habere te amicum volo, quod contingere mihi, nisi pergis ut coepisti excolere te, non potest. Nunc enim amas me, amicus non es. Quid ergo? Haec inter se diversa sunt? Immo dissimilia. Qui amicus est, amat; qui amat, non utique amicus est. Itaque amicitia semper prodest, amor aliquando etiam nocet. Si nihil aliud, ob hoc profice, ut amare discas.

Hurry then, while you are making progress for me, lest you learn it to another’s gain. I, for my part, am already gathering the fruit, when I picture us coming to be of one mind, and that whatever vigor has withdrawn from my own years will return to me from yours — though yours is not far behind.

Festina ergo, dum mihi proficis, ne istuc alteri didiceris. Ego quidem percipio iam fructum, cum mihi fingo uno nos animo futuros et quicquid aetati meae vigoris abscessit, id ad me ex tua, quamquam non multum abest, rediturum.

But I want to be glad in the fact itself as well. Joy comes to us from those we love even when they are absent, but it is slight and fleeting; the sight, the presence, the conversation hold something of living pleasure — at least if you see not only the man you wish, but the kind of man you wish. So bring yourself to me as a great gift; and, that you may press on the harder, consider that you are mortal, and I am old.

Sed tamen re quoque ipsa esse laetus volo. Venit ad nos ex iis, quos amamus, etiam absentibus gaudium, sed id leve et evanidum; conspectus et praesentia et conversatio habet aliquid vivae voluptatis, utique si non tantum quem velis, sed qualem velis, videas. Adfer itaque te mihi ingens munus, et quo magis instes, cogita te mortalem esse, me senem.

Hurry to me — but to yourself first. Make progress, and before all things see to this: that you be consistent with yourself. Whenever you wish to test whether anything has been accomplished, observe whether you want today the same things you wanted yesterday. A change of will shows that the mind is afloat, appearing now here, now there, as the wind has carried it. What is fixed and founded does not wander. This belongs to the perfect wise man, and, up to a point, to the one making progress and well advanced. What then is the difference? The latter is moved, indeed, yet does not shift; he sways in his own place. The former is not even moved. Farewell.

Propera ad me, sed ad te prius. Profice et ante omnia hoc cura, ut constes tibi. Quotiens experiri voles, an aliquid actum sit, observa, an eadem hodie velis, quae heri. Mutatio voluntatis indicat animum natare, aliubi atque aliubi apparere, prout tulit ventus. Non vagatur, quod fixum atque fundatum est. Istud sapienti perfecto contingit, aliquatenus et proficienti provectoque. Quid ergo interest? Hic commovetur quidem, non tamen transit, sed suo loco nutat; ille ne commovetur quidem. Vale.

Encourage your friend to despise with a great spirit those who reproach him for seeking the shade and leisure, for abandoning his rank, for preferring quiet to everything else when he might have attained more; let him show them daily how profitably he has managed his own affairs. The men who are envied will not cease to pass on by; some will be crushed, others will fall. Prosperity is a restless thing; it harries itself. It stirs the brain in more ways than one: it goads different men to different ends, some toward power, others toward luxury. Some it puffs up; others it softens and wholly unstrings.

Amicum tuum hortare, ut istos magno animo contemnat, qui illum obiurgant, quod umbram et otium petierit, quod dignitatem suam destituerit, et cum plus consequi posset, praetulerit quietem omnibus; quam utiliter suum negotium gesserit, cotidie illis ostentet. Hi, quibus invidetur, non desinent transire; alii elidentur, alii cadent. Res est inquieta felicitas; ipsa se exagitat. Movet cerebrum non uno genere; alios in aliud irritat, hos in potentiam, illos in luxuriam. Hos inflat, illos mollit et totos resolvit.

"But someone bears it well." Yes — the way one bears wine. So there is no reason for these people to convince you that a man is happy because he is besieged by a crowd: they run to him as to a pool, which they drain and muddy. They call him a trifler and an idler. You know that some men speak perversely and mean the opposite.

At bene aliquis illam fert. Sic, quomodo vinum. Itaque non est quod tibi isti persuadeant cum esse felicem, qui a multis obsidetur; sic ad illum, quemadmodum ad lacum concurritur, quem exhauriunt et turbant. Nugatorium et inertem vocant. Scis quosdam perverse loqui et significare contraria.

They used to call him happy; what then? Was he? Nor do I even care that he seems to some too rough and grim of spirit. Ariston used to say he would rather have a young man austere than cheerful and dear to the crowd. For the wine turns out good which, when new, seemed harsh and rough; what pleased in the vat does not last out its years. Let them call him austere and an enemy to his own advancement; that very austerity will show well with age — only let him persist in cultivating virtue, in drinking deep of the liberal studies: not those it is enough to be sprinkled with, but those in which the mind must be steeped.

Felicem vocabant; quid ergo? Erat? Ne illud quidem curo, quod quibusdam nimis horridi animi videtur et tetrici. Ariston aiebat malle se adulescentem tristem quam hilarem et amabilem turbae. Vinum enim bonum fieri, quod recens durum et asperum visum est; non pati aetatem, quod in dolio placuit. Sine eum tristem appellent et inimicum processibus suis; bene se dabit in vetustate ipsa tristitia, perseveret modo colere virtutem, perbibere liberalia studia, non illa, quibus perfundi satis est, sed haec, quibus tingendus est animus.

This is the time for learning. What then — is there any time at which one ought not to learn? By no means. But just as it is honorable to study in every year of life, it is not honorable to be schooled in every year. A shameful and ridiculous thing is an old man at his ABCs: the young man must acquire, the old man must use. So you will do a thing most useful to yourself if you make him as good as you can; these, they say, are the benefits to be sought and bestowed — of the first rank, beyond doubt — which it profits as much to give as to receive.

Hoc est discendi tempus. Quid ergo? Aliquod est, quo non sit discendum? Minime. Sed quemadmodum omnibus annis studere honestum est, ita non omnibus institui. Turpis et ridicula res est elementarius senex; iuveni parandum, seni utendum est. Facies ergo rem utilissimam tibi, si illum quam optimum feceris; haec aiunt beneficia esse expetenda tribuendaque, non dubie primae sortis, quae tam dare prodest quam accipere.

In short, nothing of his own freedom is left him now; he has given his pledge. And it is less shameful to default on a creditor than on a good hope. To pay off that debt the merchant needs a prosperous voyage, the farmer the richness of the land he tills and a favoring sky; but what this man owes can be paid off by his will alone.

Denique nihil illi iam liberi est; spopondit. Minus autem turpe est creditori quam spei bonae decoquere. Ad illud aes alienum solvendum opus est negotianti navigatione prospera, agrum colenti ubertate eius, quam colit, terrae, caeli favore; ille quod debet, sola potest voluntate persolvi.

Over character fortune has no jurisdiction. Let him so order his character that his mind, as calm as may be, may come to its perfection — the mind that feels nothing taken from it and nothing added, but stays in the same condition however things fall out. If the common goods are heaped on it, it stands out above its own possessions; if chance has struck some of them away, or all, it is made no smaller.

In mores fortuna ius non habet. Hos disponat, ut quam tranquillissimus ille animus ad perfectum veniat, qui nec ablatum sibi quicquam sentit nec adiectum, sed in eodem habitu est, quomodocumque res cedunt. Cui sive adgeruntur vulgaria bona, supra res suas eminet, sive aliquid ex istis vel omnia casus excussit, minor non fit.

Had he been born in Parthia, he would have drawn the bow as an infant; in Germany, a small boy, he would at once be brandishing a light spear; had he lived in the days of our grandfathers, he would have learned to ride and to strike the enemy hand to hand. These things the discipline of each man’s nation urges upon him and commands.

Si in Parthia natus esset, arcum infans statim tenderet; si in Germania, protinus puer tenerum hastile vibraret; si avorum nostrorum temporibus fuisset, equitare et hostem comminus percutere didicisset. Haec singulis disciplina gentis suae suadet atque imperat.

What then must this man practice? The thing that serves well against every weapon, against every kind of enemy: to despise death. That death has in it something terrible, enough to offend even our minds, which nature shaped to love themselves, no one doubts; for there would be no need to be made ready and whetted for the very thing toward which we would go by some voluntary instinct, as all creatures are carried toward their own preservation.

Quid ergo huic meditandum est? Quod adversus omnia tela, quod adversus omne hostium genus bene facit, mortem contemnere, quae quin habeat aliquid in se terribile, ut et animos nostros, quos in amorem sui natura formavit, offendat, nemo dubitat; nec enim opus esset in id comparari et acui, in quod instinctu quodam voluntario iremus, sicut feruntur omnes ad conservationem sui.

No one learns to lie at his ease, if need be, on a bed of roses; rather a man is hardened to this: not to surrender his faith under torture, and, if need be, to keep watch all night at his post — standing, even wounded sometimes — and not so much as to lean on his spear, since sleep is wont to steal upon men who recline on any prop. Death has no discomfort in it; for there must be something to which the discomfort belongs.

Nemo discit, ut si necesse fuerit, aequo animo in rosa iaceat, sed in hoc duratur, ut tormentis non summittat fidem, ut si necesse fuerit, stans etiam aliquando saucius pro vallo pervigilet et ne pilo quidem incumbat, quia solet obrepere interim somnus in aliquod adminiculum reclinatis. Mors nullum habet incommodum; esse enim debet aliquid, cuius sit incommodum.

But if so great a longing for a longer span holds you, consider that nothing of the things which pass from sight and are stored back into the nature of things — out of which they came and into which they will soon pass again — is consumed: these things cease, they do not perish. And death, which we so dread and refuse, interrupts life, it does not snatch it away; there will come again a day to set us back into the light, which many would refuse, did it not bring them back with their memory wiped clean.

Quod si tanta cupiditas te longioris aevi tenet, cogita nihil eorum, quae ab oculis abeunt et in rerum naturam, ex qua prodierunt ac mox processura sunt, reconduntur, consumi; desinunt ista, non pereunt. Et mors, quam pertimescimus ac recusamus, intermittit vitam, non eripit; veniet iterum, qui nos in lucem reponat dies, quem multi recusarent, nisi oblitos reduceret.

But later I will teach more carefully that all things which seem to perish are only changed. The man who is to return ought to go out with an even mind. Observe the wheel of things returning into themselves; you will see that nothing in this world is snuffed out, but sinks and rises by turns. Summer has gone, but another year will bring it back; winter has fallen, but its own months will restore it; night has overwhelmed the sun, but day will at once drive night off. That coursing of the stars retraces whatever it has passed; one part of the sky is forever rising, another sinking.

Sed postea diligentius docebo omnia, quae videntur perire, mutari. Aequo animo debet rediturus exire. Observa orbem rerum in se remeantium; videbis nihil in hoc mundo extingui, sed vicibus descendere ac surgere. Aestas abît, sed alter illam annus adducet; hiemps cecidit, referent illam sui menses; solem nox obruit, sed ipsam statim dies abiget. Stellarum iste discursus quicquid praeterît repetit; pars caeli levatur assidue, pars mergitur.

In the end I will make an end, if I add this one thing: that neither infants nor boys nor the feeble-minded fear death — and that it is most shameful if reason does not afford us the security to which folly brings them. Farewell.

Denique finem faciam, si hoc unum adiecero, nec infantes nec pueros nec mente lapsos timere mortem et esse turpissimum, si eam securitatem nobis ratio non praestat, ad quam stultitia perducit. Vale.

You have promised to be a good man — and that is the strongest bond there is toward a sound mind — you have been put under oath. Anyone will laugh at you who tells you this is a soft and easy service. I do not want you deceived. The words of this most honorable enlistment and of that most shameful one are the same: "to be burned, to be bound, to be slain by the sword."

Quod maximum vinculum est ad bonam mentem, promisisti virum bonum, sacramento rogatus es. Deridebit te, si quis tibi dixerit mollem esse militiam et facilem. Nolo te decipi. Eadem honestissimi huius et illius turpissimi auctoramenti verba sunt: Uri, vinciri ferroque necari.

From those who hire out their hands to the arena, and eat and drink what they must pay back in blood, a guarantee is taken that they will suffer such things even unwilling; from you, that you suffer them willing and glad. They may lower their arms and try for the people’s pity; you will neither lower your arms nor beg for your life. You must die upright and unconquered. And what does it profit, after all, to gain a few days or years? We are born with no discharge.

Ab illis, qui manus harenae locant et edunt ac bibunt, quae per sanguinem reddant, cavetur, ut ista vel inviti patiantur; a te, ut volens libensque patiaris. Illis licet arma summittere, misericordiam populi temptare; tu neque summittes nec vitam rogabis. Recto tibi invictoque moriendum est. Quid porro prodest paucos dies aut annos lucrificare? Sine missione nascimur.

A way is made by force.

Fit via vi.

Folly is a lowly thing, abject, sordid, servile, subject to many passions and the cruelest of masters. Those masters, so oppressive — now ruling by turns, now all together — wisdom dismisses from you, and wisdom alone is freedom. One road leads to it, and a straight one; you will not lose your way. Go with a steady step. If you wish to make all things subject to you, make yourself subject to reason; you will rule many if reason rules you. From her you will learn what you ought to undertake, and how; you will not stumble into your affairs by chance.

Humilis res est stultitia, abiecta, sordida, servilis, multis affectibus et saevissimis subiecta. Hos tam graves dominos, interdum alternis imperantes, interdum pariter, dimittit a te sapientia, quae sola libertas est. Una ad hanc fert via, et quidem recta; non aberrabis. Vade certo gradu; si vis omnia tibi subicere, te subice rationi; multos reges si ratio te rexerit. Ab illa disces, quid et quemadmodum adgredi debeas; non incides rebus.

You will not show me a single man who knows how he came to want what he wants; he was not led to it by deliberation but driven into it by impulse. Fortune runs into us no less often than we run into her. It is shameful not to go but to be carried, and suddenly, in the midst of the whirl of things, to ask in a daze: "How did I come to be here?" Farewell.

Neminem mihi dabis, qui sciat, quomodo quod vult, coeperit velle; non consilio adductus illo, sed inpetu inpactus est. Non minus saepe fortuna in nos incurrit quam nos in illam. Turpe est non ire, sed ferri et subito in medio turbine rerum stupentem quaerere: Huc ego quemadmodum veni? Vale.

You are right to insist that we keep up this exchange of letters between us. Conversation does the most good, because it creeps into the mind bit by bit. Set-piece debates, poured out before a listening crowd, have more noise and less intimacy. Philosophy is good counsel, and no one gives counsel at the top of his voice. Sometimes one must resort even to those harangues, so to speak, where the man in doubt must be pushed on; but where the task is not to make him willing to learn but to make him learn, one must come down to these quieter words. They enter more easily and they stick; for there is no need of many, only of effective ones.

Merito exigis, ut hoc inter nos epistularum commercium frequentemus. Plurimum proficit sermo, quia minutatim inrepit animo. Disputationes praeparatae et effusae audiente populo plus habent strepitus, minus familiaritatis. Philosophia bonum consilium est; consilium nemo clare dat. Aliquando utendum est et illis, ut ita dicam, contionibus, ubi qui dubitat, impellendus est; ubi vero non hoc agendum est, ut velit discere, sed ut discat, ad haec submissiora verba veniendum est. Facilius intrant et haerent; nec enim multis opus est, sed efficacibus.

They must be scattered like seed, which, however tiny it is, once it has taken hold of suitable ground unfolds its powers and spreads from the smallest beginning into the greatest growth. Reason does the same: to the eye it does not reach far, but it grows in the working. Few are the words that are spoken, but if the mind has taken them in well, they gather strength and rise up. The condition of precepts, I say, is the same as that of seeds: they accomplish much, and they are small. Only let a suitable mind, as I said, receive them and draw them into itself. It too will breed many things in turn, and give back more than it received. Farewell.

Seminis modo spargenda sunt, quod quamvis sit exiguum, cum occupavit idoneum locum, vires suas explicat et ex minimo in maximos auctus diffunditur. Idem facit ratio; non late patet, si aspicias: in opere crescit. Pauca sunt, quae dicuntur, sed si illa animus bene excepit, convalescunt et exurgunt. Eadem est, inquam, praeceptorum condicio quae seminum; multum efficiunt, et angusta sunt. Tantum, ut dixi, idonea mens capiat illa et in se trahat. Multa invicem et ipsa generabit et plus reddet quam acceperit. Vale.

The notebooks you ask for, carefully ordered and packed into small compass, I will indeed put together. But take care that the orderly method may not profit you more than this thing now commonly called a breviarium — which, back when people spoke Latin, used to be called a summarium. The one is more needful to the learner, the other to one who already knows; for the one teaches, the other reminds. But I will furnish you abundance of both. There is no reason for you to demand of me this author or that: the man who has to supply a voucher is himself unknown.

Commentarios, quos desideras, diligenter ordinatos et in angustum coactos ego vero conponam. Sed vide, ne plus profutura sit ratio ordinaria quam haec, quae nunc vulgo breviarium dicitur, olim cum latine loquerentur, summarium vocabatur. Illa res discenti magis necessaria est, haec scienti. Illa enim docet, haec admonet. Sed utriusque rei tibi copiam faciam. Tu a me non est quod illum aut illum exigas; qui notorem dat, ignotus est.

So I will write what you want, but in my own way; meanwhile you have many writers whose works I am not sure are ordered well enough. Take in hand a catalogue of the philosophers: that very thing will force you to wake up, when you see how many have labored for you. You will long to be one of them yourself. For the noble mind has this best quality in it, that it is roused toward what is honorable. No man of lofty genius takes delight in what is low and sordid; the look of great things calls him to itself and lifts him up.

Scribam ergo quod vis, sed meo more; interim multos habes, quorum scripta nescio an satis ordinent. Sume in manus indicem philosophorum; haec ipsa res expergisci te coget, si videris, quam multi tibi laboraverunt. Concupisces et ipse ex illis unus esse. Habet enim hoc optimum in se generosus animus, quod concitatur ad honesta. Neminem excelsi ingenii virum humilia delectant et sordida; magnarum rerum species ad se vocat et extollit.

As the flame rises straight up and can no more be laid flat and pressed down than it can be still, so our mind is in motion, the more mobile and active the more vehement it is. But happy the man who has given this impulse to better things! He will set himself outside the jurisdiction and dominion of fortune. Prosperity he will temper, adversity he will break down, and the things others admire he will look down upon.

Quemadmodum flamma surgit in rectum, iacere ac deprimi non potest, non magis quam quiescere; ita noster animus in motu est, eo mobilior et actuosior, quo vehementior fuerit. Sed felix, qui ad meliora hunc inpetum dedit! Ponet se extra ius dicionemque fortunae. Secunda temperabit, adversa comminuet et aliis admiranda despiciet.

It is the mark of a great mind to despise great things and to prefer the moderate to the excessive. For the moderate are useful and life-giving, while the excessive do harm by their very overflow. So a crop too rank is flattened by its own abundance, so the branches are broken under too heavy a load, so excessive fruitfulness never comes to ripeness. The same befalls minds as well, which immoderate prosperity bursts — prosperity they turn not only to the injury of others but even to their own.

Magni animi est magna contemnere ac mediocria malle quam nimia. Illa enim utilia vitaliaque sunt; at haec eo, quod superfluunt, nocent. Sic segetem nimia sternit ubertas, sic rami nimio onere franguntur, sic ad maturitatem non pervenit nimia fecunditas. Idem animis quoque evenit, quos inmoderata felicitas rumpit, qua non tantum in aliorum iniuriam, sed etiam in suam utuntur.

What enemy was ever so insolent toward anyone as their own pleasures are toward some men? Their want of control and their mad lust you could pardon on this one ground: that they suffer what they have done. And not without reason does this frenzy harry them; for desire that overleaps the natural measure must run out into the boundless. Nature has its own limit, but empty cravings, born of lust, have no end.

Qui hostis in quemquam tam contumeliosus fuit quam in quosdam voluptates suae sunt? Quorum inpotentiae atque insanae libidini ob hoc unum possis ignoscere, quod quae fecere patiuntur. Nec inmerito hic illos furor vexat; necesse est enim in inmensum exeat cupiditas, quae naturalem modum transilit. Ille enim habet suum finem, inania et ex libidine orta sine termino sunt.

Usefulness measures out what is necessary; but to what standard do you reduce the superfluous? And so they plunge into pleasures which, once they have grown into a habit, they cannot do without; and for this reason they are most wretched, that they have come to the point where the things that had been superfluous have become necessary. So they are slaves to their pleasures, not enjoyers of them; and — the last of all evils — they even love their own ills. But unhappiness is complete when shameful things not only delight but also please, and there ceases to be any room for a cure once what had been vices have become character. Farewell.

Necessaria metitur utilitas; supervacua quo redigis? Voluptatibus itaque se mergunt, quibus in consuetudinem adductis carere non possunt, et ob hoc miserrimi sunt, quod eo pervenerunt, ut illis quae supervacua fuerant, facta sint necessaria. Serviunt itaque voluptatibus, non fruuntur, et mala sua, quod malorum ultimum est, et amant. Tunc autem est consummata infelicitas, ubi turpia non solum delectant, sed etiam placent, et desinit esse remedio locus, ubi quae fuerant vitia, mores sunt. Vale.

I thank you for writing to me often; for in the one way you can, you show yourself to me. I never receive a letter of yours without our being at once together. If portraits of absent friends are pleasant to us, which renew the memory and lighten the longing with a false and empty solace, how much more pleasant are letters, which bring the true traces, the true marks, of an absent friend? For what is sweetest in seeing him — the recognition — a friend’s own hand, stamped on a letter, affords.

Quod frequenter mihi scribis, gratias ago. Nam quo uno modo potes, te mihi ostendis. Numquam epistulam tuam accipio, ut non protinus una simus. Si imagines nobis amicorum absentium iucundae sunt, quae memoriam renovant et desiderium falso atque inani solacio levant, quanto iucundiores sunt litterae, quae vera amici absentis vestigia, veras notas adferunt? Nam quod in conspectu dulcissimum est, id amici manus epistulae inpressa praestat, agnoscere.

You write that you heard the philosopher Serapio when he put in at your shores. He is wont to tear his words along at a great rush, which he does not pour out one at a time but crowds and drives on; for more come than a single voice can carry. This I do not approve in a philosopher, whose delivery, like his life, ought to be composed; and nothing is well ordered that is hurried and rushes headlong. So in Homer that swift speech, coming on without a break in the manner of snow, was given to the younger orator, while the gentle one, sweeter than honey, flows from the old man.

Audisse te scribis Serapionem philosophum, cum istuc adplicuisset: Solet magno cursu verba convellere, quae non effundit una, sed premit et urguet. Plura enim veniunt quam quibus vox una sufficiat. Hoc non probo in philosopho, cuius pronuntiatio quoque, sicut vita, debet esse conposita; nihil autem ordinatum est, quod praecipitatur et properat. Itaque oratio illa apud Homerum concitata et sine intermissione in morem nivis superveniens iuveniori oratori data est, lenis et melle dulcior seni profluit.

So hold it thus: that rapid and overflowing force of speech is fitter for a mountebank in the crowd than for one who is conducting a great and serious matter and teaching. I no more want him to drip than to race; let him neither stretch the ears thin nor overwhelm them. For poverty and thinness too keep the hearer less attentive, through weariness at the broken slowness; yet what is waited for sinks in more easily than what flies past. In short, men are said to hand down precepts to their pupils; but what runs away is not handed down.

Sic itaque habe, istam vim dicendi rapidam atque abundantem aptiorem esse circulanti quam agenti rem magnam ac seriam docentique. Aeque stillare illum nolo quam currere; nec extendat aures nec obruat. Nam illa quoque inopia et exilitas minus intentum auditorem habet taedio interruptae tarditatis, facilius tamen insidit, quod exspectatur, quam quod praetervolat. Denique tradere homines discipulis praecepta dicuntur; non traditur quod fugit.

Add now that speech which devotes itself to truth ought to be unadorned and plain. This popular style has nothing of the true in it: it wants to move the crowd and to snatch heedless ears by sheer onslaught; it does not offer itself to be handled, it is swept away. And how can that govern which cannot be governed? And what of this — that speech applied to the healing of minds ought to sink down into us? Remedies do no good unless they linger.

Adice nunc, quod quae veritati operam dat oratio, inconposita esse debet et simplex. Haec popularis nihil habet veri; movere vult turbam et inconsultas aures inpetu rapere, tractandam se non praebet, aufertur. Quomodo autem regere potest, quae regi non potest? Quid, quod haec oratio, quae sanandis mentibus adhibetur, descendere in nos debet? Remedia non prosunt, nisi inmorantur.

Besides, it has much that is hollow and empty; it sounds more than it avails. The things that terrify me must be soothed, the things that provoke me checked, the things that deceive me dispelled, luxury restrained, greed reined in: which of these can be done in a rush? What physician cures the sick in passing? And what of this — that such a din of words tumbling out without discrimination has not even any pleasure in it?

Multum praeterea habet inanitatis et vani, plus sonat quam valet. Lenienda sunt, quae me exterrent, conpescenda, quae inritant, discutienda, quae fallunt, inhibenda luxuria, corripienda avaritia; quid horum raptim potest fieri? Quis medicus aegros in transitu curat? Quid, quod ne voluptatem quidem ullam habet talis verborum sine dilectu ruentium strepitus?

But just as with most things which you would not believe could be done, it is enough to have learned of them once, so with these men who have drilled their words it is more than enough to have heard them once. For what would anyone wish to learn from them, what to imitate? What is one to judge of the mind of men whose speech is in disorder and let loose and cannot be reined in?

Sed ut pleraque, quae fieri posse non crederes, cognovisse satis est, ita istos, qui verba exercuerunt, abunde est semel audisse. Quid enim quis discere, quid imitari velit? Quid de eorum animo iudicet, quorum oratio perturbata et inmissa est nec potest reprimi?

As with men running down a slope, the step does not stop where they meant it to, but the body’s weight, once set going, sweeps them along and carries them farther than they wished; so that speed of speaking is neither in its own control nor seemly enough for philosophy, which ought to set its words down, not fling them out, and to advance step by step.

Quemadmodum per proclive currentium non ubi visum est, gradus sistitur, sed inritato corporis pondere se rapit ac longius quam voluit effertur; sic ista dicendi celeritas nec in sua potestate est nec satis decora philosophiae, quae ponere debet verba, non proicere, et pedetemptim procedere.

What then? Will it never rise up? Why not? But with the dignity of character preserved, which that violent and excessive force strips away. Let it have great strength, but strength controlled; let it be a perennial stream, not a torrent. I would scarcely allow even an orator such a speed of speaking — beyond recall, going on without law. For how will the juror keep up, when he is sometimes untrained and raw? Even then, when either show or a passion not in command of itself has carried the orator off, let him hurry and pile it on only so far as the ears can bear.

Quid ergo? Non aliquando et insurget? Quidni? Sed salva dignitate morum, quam violenta ista et nimia vis exuit. Habeat vires magnas, moderatas tamen; perennis sit unda, non torrens. Vix oratori permiserim talem dicendi velocitatem inrevocabilem ac sine lege vadentem. Quemadmodum enim iudex subsequi poterit aliquando etiam inperitus et rudis? Tum quoque, cum illum aut ostentatio abstulerit aut affectus inpotens sui, tantum festinet atque ingerat, quantum aures pati possunt.

So you will do right not to look upon those men who ask how much they say, not how; and you yourself will prefer, if you must, to speak like Publius Vinicius, who stammers. When someone asked how Publius Vinicius spoke, Asellius said: "Drawn out." And Geminus Varius said: "How you can call that man eloquent I do not know; he cannot string three words together." Why should you not prefer to speak as Vinicius does?

Recte ergo facies, si non videris istos, qui quantum dicant, non quemadmodum quaerunt, et ipse malueris, si necesse est, ut P. Vinicius dicere, qui titubat. Cum quaereretur, quomodo P. Vinicius diceret, Asellius ait: Tractim. Nam Geminus Varius ait: Quomodo istum disertum dicatis nescio; tria verba non potest iungere. Quidni malis tu sic dicere, quomodo Vinicius?

Some man as tasteless might break in — like the one who, to Vinicius dragging out his words one by one as though dictating rather than speaking, said: "Say on — are you going to say anything?" But the gallop of Quintus Haterius, the most celebrated orator of his day, I would have stand far off from a sound man; he never hesitated, never paused; he began once and ended once.

Aliquis tam insulsus intervenerit quam qui illi singula verba vellenti, tamquam dictaret, non diceret, ait: Dic, numquid dicas. Nam Q. Hateri cursum, suis temporibus oratoris celeberrimi, longe abesse ab homine sano volo; numquam dubitavit, numquam intermisit; semel incipiebat, semel desinebat.

Yet I think some things suit some nations more or less; in the Greeks you might bear this license, but we, even when we write, have grown accustomed to punctuate. Our own Cicero too, from whom Roman eloquence leapt forth, was a man of measured pace. Roman speech looks about itself more, and weighs itself, and offers itself to be weighed.

Quaedam tamen et nationibus puto magis aut minus convenire; in Graecis hanc licentiam tuleris; nos etiam cum scribimus, interpungere adsuevimus. Cicero quoque noster, a quo Romana eloquentia exiluit, gradarius fuit. Romanus sermo magis se circumspicit et aestimat praebetque aestimandum.

Fabianus — an outstanding man in his life, in his learning, and, what ranks after these, in his eloquence too — used to argue with ease rather than with rush, so that you could call it facility, not speed. This I admit in a wise man, though I do not demand it; I would have his speech come out without impediment, yet I prefer that it be delivered rather than that it pour.

Fabianus, vir egregius et vita et scientia et, quod post ista est, eloquentia quoque, disputabat expedite magis quam concitate, ut posses dicere facilitatem esse illam, non celeritatem. Hanc ego in viro sapiente recipio, non exigo; ut oratio eius sine impedimento exeat, proferatur tamen malo quam profluat.

And I deter you from that disease all the more because it cannot fall to you except by your ceasing to feel shame; you would have to rub your brow smooth and stop listening to yourself. For that unwatched gallop will carry along much that you would wish to take back.

Eo autem magis te deterreo ab isto morbo, quod non potest tibi ista res contingere aliter quam si te pudere desierit; perfrices frontem oportet et te ipse non audias. Multa enim inobservatus ille cursus feret, quae reprehendere velis.

It cannot, I say, fall to you with your modesty intact. Besides, it needs daily practice, and your effort must be shifted from matter to words. And these, even if they are present and able to run on without any labor of yours, must nonetheless be controlled. For as a more modest gait befits a wise man, so does a restrained speech, not a bold one. The sum of sums, then, will be this: I bid you be slow of speech. Farewell.

Non potest, inquam, tibi contingere res ista salva verecundia. Praeterea exercitatione opus est cotidiana et a rebus studium transferendum est ad verba. Haec autem etiam si aderunt et poterunt sine ullo tuo labore decurrere, tamen temperanda sunt. Nam quemadmodum sapienti viro incessus modestior convenit, ita oratio pressa, non audax. Summa ergo summarum haec erit: tardilocum esse te iubeo. Vale.

You are doing an excellent thing, and a wholesome one for yourself, if, as you write, you keep going toward a sound mind — which it is foolish to pray for, when you can obtain it from yourself. There is no need to lift your hands to heaven, nor to beg the temple-keeper to admit us to the ear of the image, as though we could be better heard there: the god is near you, with you, within you.

Facis rem optimam et tibi salutarem, si, ut scribis, perseveras ire ad bonam mentem, quam stultum est optare, cum possis a te impetrare. Non sunt ad caelum elevandae manus nec exorandus aedituus, ut nos ad aurem simulacri, quasi magis exaudiri possimus, admittat; prope est a te deus, tecum est, intus est.

What god it is, is uncertain; yet a god dwells here.

Quis deus incertum est, habitat deus.

If a grove of ancient trees, grown beyond their usual height, meets you, and shuts off the sight of the sky with the screen of branches sheltering one another, the loftiness of the wood, the seclusion of the place, the wonder of a shade so dense and unbroken in the open will work in you the conviction of a divine presence. If some cavern, the rocks gnawed deep away, holds up a mountain — not made by hand, but hollowed to such vastness by natural causes — it will strike your mind with a certain intimation of religious awe. We venerate the sources of great rivers; the sudden bursting-forth of a mighty stream from hiding has its altars; springs of hot water are worshiped; and certain pools either their darkness or their measureless depth has made sacred.

Si tibi occurrerit vetustis arboribus et solitam altitudinem egressis frequens lucus et conspectum caeli ramorum aliorum alios protegentium summovens obtentu, illa proceritas silvae et secretum loci et admiratio umbrae in aperto tam densae atque continuae fidem tibi numinis faciet. Si quis specus saxis penitus exesis montem suspenderit, non manu factus, sed naturalibus causis in tantam laxitatem excavatus, animum tuum quadam religionis suspicione percutiet. Magnorum fluminum capita veneramur; subita ex abdito vasti amnis eruptio aras habet; coluntur aquarum calentium fontes, et stagna quaedam vel opacitas vel inmensa altitudo sacravit.

If you see a man undismayed by dangers, untouched by desires, happy amid adversities, calm in the midst of storms, looking upon men from a higher place, upon the gods from a level — will not a veneration of him come over you? Will you not say: "This thing is greater and loftier than to be believed like the puny body in which it dwells"? A divine force has come down into it.

Si hominem videris interritum periculis, intactum cupiditatibus, inter adversa felicem, in mediis tempestatibus placidum, ex superiore loco homines videntem, ex aequo deos, non subibit te veneratio eius? Non dices: Ista res maior est altiorque quam ut credi similis huic, in quo est, corpusculo possit? Vis isto divina descendit.

A heavenly power stirs a soul that is excellent, measured, passing over all things as lesser, laughing at whatever we fear and whatever we wish for. So great a thing cannot stand without the support of a divinity. And so by its greater part it is there, whence it came down. As the sun’s rays do indeed touch the earth, yet are there whence they are sent, so a great and sacred soul, sent down to this end — that we might know the divine more nearly — consorts with us indeed, but cleaves to its origin; on that it depends, to that it looks and strives, and it moves among our affairs as a better being.

Animum excellentem, moderatum, omnia tamquam minora transeuntem, quicquid timemus optamusque ridentem, caelestis potentia agitat. Non potest res tanta sine adminiculo numinis stare. Itaque maiore sui parte illic est, unde descendit. Quemadmodum radii solis contingunt quidem terram, sed ibi sunt, unde mittuntur; sic animus magnus ac sacer et in hoc demissus, ut propius divina nossemus, conversatur quidem nobiscum, sed haeret origini suae; illinc pendet, illuc spectat ac nititur, nostris tamquam melior interest.

What soul, then, is this? One that shines with no good but its own. For what is more foolish than to praise in a man the things that are another’s? What more demented than the man who admires what can at once be transferred to someone else? Golden bridles do not make a better horse. A lion with a gilded mane is sent out one way — handled, and worn down until it is forced to endure the trapping — and quite another way the unkempt lion of unbroken spirit; this one, fierce in its onset, as nature meant it to be, splendid in its very wildness — whose beauty is just this, that it cannot be looked on without fear — is preferred to that languid, gold-leafed one.

Quis est ergo hic animus? Qui nullo bono nisi suo nitet; quid enim est stultius quam in homine aliena laudare? Quid eo dementius, qui ea miratur, quae ad alium transferri protinus possunt? Non faciunt meliorem equum aurei freni. Aliter leo aurata iuba mittitur, dum contractatur et ad patientiam recipiendi ornamenti cogitur fatigatus, aliter incultus, integri spiritus; hic scilicet inpetu acer, qualem illum natura esse voluit, speciosus ex horrido, cuius hic decor est, non sine timore aspici, praefertur illi languido et bratteato.

No one ought to glory except in what is his own. We praise the vine if it loads its shoots with fruit, if by the weight of what it has borne it bends down to the ground the very props that hold it up; would anyone prefer to it the vine from which hang golden grapes and golden leaves? The vine’s own virtue is fruitfulness; in a man too the thing to be praised is what is his own. He has a handsome household and a beautiful house, he sows much, he lends much at interest; none of this is in him — it is around him.

Nemo gloriari nisi suo debet. Vitem laudamus, si fructu palmites onerat, si ipsa pondere ad terram eorum, quae tulit, adminicula deducit; num quis huic illam praeferret vitem, cui aureae uvae, aurea folia dependent? Propria virtus est in vite fertilitas, in homine quoque id laudandum est, quod ipsius est. Familiam formosam habet et domum pulchram, multum serit, multum fenerat; nihil horum in ipso est, sed circa ipsum.

Praise in him what can neither be snatched away nor given, what is a man’s own. You ask what that is? The mind, and reason perfected in the mind. For man is a rational animal. And so his good is brought to completion if he has fulfilled that for which he is born.

Lauda in illo, quod nec eripi potest nec dari, quod proprium hominis est. Quaeris quid sit? Animus et ratio in animo perfecta. Rationale enim animal est homo. Consummatur itaque bonum eius, si id inplevit, cui nascitur.

And what is it that this reason demands of him? The easiest thing: to live according to his own nature. But the common madness makes it hard; we shove one another into vices. And how can they be called back to health whom no one holds back, whom the crowd drives on? Farewell.

Quid est autem, quod ab illo ratio haec exigat? Rem facillimam, secundum naturam suam vivere. Sed hanc difficilem facit communis insania; in vitia alter alterum trudimus. Quomodo autem revocari ad salutem possunt, quos nemo retinet, populus inpellit? Vale.

Has that man already convinced you that he is a good man? And yet a good man can be neither made nor recognized so quickly. Do you know whom I now call a good man? One of the second rank. For that other is born, perhaps — like the phoenix — once in five hundred years. And it is no wonder that great things are produced only at long intervals: the middling, born into the crowd, fortune brings forth often enough, but the exceptional it commends by its very rarity.

Iam tibi iste persuasit virum se bonum esse? Atqui vir bonus tam cito nec fieri potest nec intellegi. Scis quem nunc virum bonum dicam? Huius secundae notae. Nam ille alter fortasse tamquam phoenix semel anno quingentesimo nascitur. Nec est mirum ex intervallo magna generari; mediocria et in turbam nascentia saepe fortuna producit, eximia vero ipsa raritate commendat.

But that man is still far from what he professes. And if he knew what a good man is, he would not yet believe himself to be one — perhaps would even despair of becoming one. "But he thinks ill of the bad." That the bad do too; and there is no greater punishment of wickedness than that it displeases itself and its own.

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

"But he hates those who use sudden and great power without restraint." He will do the same when he has the same power. The vices of many lie hidden because they are too weak to act — vices that will dare no less, once their own strength has pleased them, than those which prosperity has already laid bare.

At odit eos, qui subita et magna potentia inpotenter utuntur. Idem faciet, cum idem potuerit. Multorum, quia inbecilla sunt, latent vitia, non minus ausura, cum illis vires suae placuerint, quam illa, quae iam felicitas aperuit.

They lack the instruments for unfolding their wickedness. So even a deadly serpent is handled in safety while it is stiff with cold: its poisons are not lacking then, only numb. The cruelty and ambition and luxury of many fall short of daring deeds equal to the worst men’s only for want of fortune’s favor. That they want the same things you will soon learn, in this way: grant them the power, to the full of their wish.

Instrumenta illis explicandae nequitiae desunt. Sic tuto serpens etiam pestifera tractatur, dum riget frigore; non desunt tunc illi venena, sed torpent. Multorum crudelitas et ambitio et luxuria, ut paria pessimis audeat, fortunae favore deficitur. Eadem velle sic subinde cognosces: da posse, quantum volunt.

You remember, when you were insisting that a certain man was in your power, my saying that he was a flighty, light thing, and that you held not his foot but a feather. Did I lie? You were holding a plume, which he let go, and fled. You know what games he played you afterward, how many things he attempted that were bound to fall on his own head. He did not see that, through the dangers of others, he was rushing upon his own. He did not consider how burdensome were the things he sought, even if they were not superfluous.

Meministi, cum quendam adfirmares esse in tua potestate, dixisse me volaticum esse ac levem et te non pedem eius tenere, sed pennam. Mentitus sum? Pluma tenebatur, quam remisit et fugit. Scis, quos postea tibi exhibuerit ludos, quam multa in caput suum casura temptaverit. Non videbat se per aliorum pericula in suum ruere. Non cogitabat, quam onerosa essent, quae petebat, etiam si supervacua non essent.

And so, in the things we strive after, toward which we contend with great labor, we ought to look at this: that either there is no advantage in them, or more disadvantage. Some are superfluous, some are not worth the price. But we do not see this through, and the things that cost us most dearly seem to us free of charge.

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

From this our stupidity may appear: that we think only those things bought for which we pay out money, and call those free for which we spend our very selves. Things we would refuse to buy if our house had to be handed over for them, or some pleasant or productive estate — to these we are most ready to come, at the cost of anxiety, of danger, of the loss of honor and freedom and time. So true is it that nothing is cheaper to anyone than himself.

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

So let us do in all our plans and affairs what we are wont to do whenever we have gone up to the dealer in some merchandise: let us see at what price this thing we covet is offered. Often the greatest price is the one for which no money is paid. I can show you many things which, once acquired and accepted, have wrung our freedom out of us; we would be our own, if these were not ours.

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

Turn these things over with yourself, then, not only where there is a question of gain, but also where there is a question of loss. "This will perish." To be sure — it came from outside; you will live as easily without it as you have lived. If you had it long, you lose it after you have had your fill; if not long, you lose it before you grow used to it. "You will have less money." Yes — and less trouble.

Haec ergo tecum ipse versa, non solum ubi de incremento agetur, sed etiam ubi de iactura. Hoc periturum est. Nempe adventicium fuit; tam facile sine isto vives quam vixisti. Si diu illud habuisti, perdis postquam satiatus es; si non diu, perdis antequam adsuescas. Pecuniam minorem habebis. Nempe et molestiam.

"Less favor." Yes — and less envy. Look around at these things that drive us to madness, that we lose with floods of tears; you will know that it is not the loss in them that is painful, but the opinion of loss. No one feels that they have perished — he only thinks it. He who possesses himself has lost nothing. But to how few has it fallen to possess themselves? Farewell.

Gratiam minorem. Nempe et invidiam. Circumspice ista, quae nos agunt in insaniam, quae cum plurumis lacrimis amittimus; scies non damnum in is molestum esse, sed opinionem damni. Nemo illa perisse sentit, sed cogitat. Qui se habet, nihil perdidit. Sed quoto cuique habere se contigit? Vale.

You ask how this came to me — who told me that you were thinking what you had told no one? The one who knows the most: rumor. "What then?" you say. "Am I so great that I can set rumor going?" There is no reason to measure yourself with an eye to this place of mine; look to the place where you reside.

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

Whatever stands out among its neighbors is great there, where it stands out. For greatness has no fixed measure; comparison either raises it or lowers it. A ship that is large on a river is tiny on the sea. A rudder that is large for one ship is small for another.

Quicquid inter vicina eminet, magnum est illic, ubi eminet. Nam magnitudo non habet modum certum; comparatio illam aut tollit aut deprimit. Navis, quae in flumine magna est, in mari parvula est. Gubernaculum, quod alteri navi magnum, alteri exiguum est.

You now, in your province, however much you may despise yourself, are great. What you do, how you dine, how you sleep — it is inquired into, it is known; the more carefully, therefore, must you live. But judge yourself happy only when you can live in the open, when your own walls shelter you but do not hide you — walls which we mostly judge to be set around us not that we may live more safely, but that we may sin more secretly.

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

I will tell you a thing by which you may gauge our characters: you will scarcely find anyone who can live with his door open. It is our conscience, not our pride, that has set the doorkeepers there; we live in such a way that to be suddenly seen is to be caught. And what does it profit to hide oneself away and to shun the eyes and ears of men?

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

A good conscience calls in a crowd; a bad one is anxious and uneasy even in solitude. If what you do is honorable, let everyone know it; if it is base, what does it matter that no one knows, when you yourself know? O wretched you, if you despise this witness! Farewell.

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

Once again you make yourself out small to me, and say that nature dealt with you the more grudgingly first, and fortune afterward — when you can lift yourself out of the crowd and rise to the highest happiness of men. If there is any other good in philosophy, it is this: that it does not look at the family tree. All men, if they are traced back to their first origin, are descended from the gods.

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

You are a Roman knight, and your own industry brought you up to this rank; but, by Hercules, to many the fourteen rows are closed; the senate-house does not admit everyone; even the camp is fastidious in choosing whom it takes for toil and danger. A good mind lies open to all; in respect of this we are all wellborn. Philosophy neither rejects anyone nor selects; it shines for all.

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

Socrates was no patrician. Cleanthes drew water and hired out his hands to water a garden. Philosophy did not receive Plato a nobleman — it made him one. What reason is there to despair that you can be made their equal? All these are your ancestors, if you bear yourself worthy of them; and you will, if you convince yourself at once of this: that by no one are you surpassed in nobility.

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

We all have just as many before us; no one’s origin does not lie beyond memory. Plato says that there is no king who is not descended from slaves, no slave who is not descended from kings. A long succession of changes has mixed all this together, and fortune has turned it upside down.

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

Who is wellborn? The man well framed by nature for virtue. This alone is to be regarded; otherwise, if you call up the distant past, everyone comes from that before which there is nothing. From the first rising of the world down to this present time, a series alternating between the splendid and the sordid has brought us along. An atrium full of smoke-blackened busts does not make a man noble. No one lived for our glory, nor is what was before us ours; it is the mind that makes a man noble, and to it, out of any condition whatever, it is granted to rise above fortune.

Quis est generosus? Ad virtutem bene a natura conpositus. Hoc unum intuendum est; alioquin si ad vetera revocas, nemo non inde est, ante quod nihil est. A primo mundi ortu usque in hoc tempus perduxit nos ex splendidis sordidisque alternata series. Non facit nobilem atrium plenum fumosis imaginibus. Nemo in nostram gloriam vixit nec quod ante nos fuit, nostrum est; animus facit nobilem, cui ex quacumque condicione supra fortunam licet surgere.

Suppose, then, that you are not a Roman knight but a freedman’s son: you can still achieve this — to be the one free man among the freeborn. "How?" you say. If you distinguish evils and goods without taking the crowd as your authority. One must look not at where they come from, but at where they go. If there is anything that can make life happy, that thing is good in its own right; for it cannot be perverted into evil.

Puta itaque te non equitem Romanum esse, sed libertinum; potes hoc consequi, ut solus sis liber inter ingenuos. Quomodo? inquis. Si mala bonaque non populo auctore distinxeris. Intuendum est non unde veniant, sed quo eant. Si quid est, quod vitam beatam potest facere, id bonum est suo iure. Depravari enim in malum non potest.

What is it, then, in which men go wrong, when all desire the happy life? That they take its instruments for the thing itself, and, while they seek it, flee it. For although the sum of the happy life is a solid security and an unshaken confidence in it, they gather up the causes of anxiety, and along the treacherous road of life they not only carry their baggage but drag it; so they always recede farther from the achievement of what they seek, and the more labor they have spent, the more they hinder themselves and are carried backward. This is what happens to people hurrying in a labyrinth: their very speed entangles them. Farewell.

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

You complain that there is a scarcity of books where you are. It does not matter how many you have, but how good; a fixed course of reading profits, a varied one merely amuses. He who wishes to arrive where he has set out for should follow one road, not wander over many. To do otherwise is not to travel, but to stray.

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

"I could wish," you say, "that you would give me counsel rather than books." But I am ready to send whatever books I have, and to clear out the whole granary. I would transport myself there too, if I could; and were I not hoping you would soon obtain release from your duty, I would have declared this old man’s expedition for myself, and neither Charybdis nor Scylla nor that fabled strait could have deterred me. I would have swum those waters, not merely sailed them, so long as I might embrace you and judge in your presence how much you had grown in mind.

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

But as for your wanting my books sent to you, I no more think myself eloquent on that account than I would think myself handsome if you asked for my portrait. I know this is the work of indulgence, not of judgment. And if it is judgment, then indulgence has imposed on you.

Ceterum quod libros meos tibi mitti desideras, non magis ideo me disertum puto quam formosum putarem, si imaginem meam peteres. Indulgentiae scio istud esse, non iudicii. Et si modo iudicii est, indulgentia tibi inposuit.

But whatever they are, read them as one who still seeks the truth and does not know it, and seeks it stubbornly. For I have not sold myself into any man’s bondage; I bear no one’s name. I give much credit to the judgment of great men, but I claim something for my own as well. For they too left us not things discovered but things to be sought, and they might perhaps have discovered what was needful, had they not gone seeking the superfluous as well.

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

Much of their time was stolen by quibbling over words, by captious disputations that exercise a sharpness which comes to nothing. We tie knots, we bind an ambiguous meaning onto words, and then we untie it again. Have we so much time to spare? Do we already know how to live, how to die? We must press on with the whole mind to where care must be taken that things, not words, deceive us.

Multum illis temporis verborum cavillatio eripuit, captiosae disputationes, quae acumen irritum exercent. Nectimus nodos et ambiguam significationem verbis inligamus ac deinde dissolvimus. Tantum nobis vacat? Iam vivere, iam mori scimus? Tota illo mente pergendum est, ubi provideri debet, ne res nos, non verba, decipiant.

Why do you draw distinctions for me among the likenesses of words, by which no one was ever caught except while debating? It is things that deceive — distinguish those. We embrace evils in place of goods; we wish for the opposite of what we wished for. Our prayers fight with our prayers, our plans with our plans.

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

How like to friendship is flattery! It does not merely imitate it but outdoes and surpasses it; it is received with open and willing ears and descends to the very depths of the heart, pleasing by the very thing in which it wounds. Teach me how I may tell this likeness apart. A fawning enemy comes to me in the guise of a friend. Vices creep upon us under the name of virtues: rashness hides under the title of courage, moderation is called cowardice, the cautious man is taken for the timid; in these we err at great peril. Stamp sure marks upon them.

Adulatio quam similis est amicitiae! Non imitatur tantum illam, sed vincit et praeterit; apertis ac propitiis auribus recipitur et in praecordia ima descendit, eo ipso gratiosa, quo laedit. Doce quemadmodum hanc similitudinem possim dinoscere. Venit ad me pro amico blandus inimicus. Vitia nobis sub virtutum nomine obrepunt, temeritas sub titulo fortitudinis latet, moderatio vocatur ignavia, pro cauto timidus accipitur; in his magno periculo erramus. His certas notas inprime.

For the rest, the man who is asked whether he has horns is not so foolish as to feel his forehead, nor again so silly or dull that he fails to know he has none, even after you have convinced him by the most subtle deduction. These things deceive without harm, like the conjurer’s cups and pebbles, in which it is the very trickery that delights me. Make me understand how it is done: I have lost my taste for it. I say the same of those catch-questions — for by what better name should I call sophisms? They neither harm the ignorant nor help the knowing.

Ceterum qui interrogatur, an cornua habeat, non est tam stultus, ut frontem suam temptet, nec rursus tam ineptus aut hebes, ut ne sciat tu illi subtilissima collectione persuaseris. Sic ista sine noxa decipiunt, quomodo praestigiatorum acetabula et calculi, in quibus me fallacia ipsa delectat. Effice, ut quomodo fiat intellegam; perdidi usum. Idem de istis captionibus dico; quo enim nomine potius sophismata appellem? Nec ignoranti nocent nec scientem iuvant.

If you really wish to draw apart the ambiguities of words, teach us this: that the happy man is not the one the crowd calls so, to whom great wealth has flowed in, but the one whose every good is in the mind — upright and lofty, trampling on what is changeable, who sees no one with whom he would wish to change places, who values a man by that part alone in which he is a man, who takes nature for his teacher, shapes himself to her laws, and lives as she has prescribed; from whom no force shakes out his goods, who turns evils into good, sure of judgment, unshaken, undismayed; whom some force may move, none may throw into confusion; whom fortune, when she has hurled the most harmful weapon she had with all her might, pricks but does not wound — and that rarely. For the rest of her weapons, by which the human race is laid low, bounce off him like hail, which, dashed against the roofs, rattles and dissolves without any harm to the dweller within.

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

Why do you detain me on the thing you yourself call the Liar, about which so many books have been composed? Look — my whole life lies to me; refute that, bring that back to the truth, if you are sharp. It judges to be necessary things of which a great part is superfluous. And even what is not superfluous has no weight in it toward this — to be able to make a man fortunate and happy. For a thing is not good the moment it is necessary; or else we throw away the word "good" if we give this name to bread and barley-meal and the rest, without which life is not carried on.

Quid me detines in eo, quem tu ipse pseudomenon appellas, de quo tantum librorum conpositum est? Ecce tota mihi vita mentitur; hanc coargue, hanc ad verum, si acutus es, redige. Necessaria iudicat, quorum magna pars supervacua est. Etiam quae non est supervacua, nihil in se momenti habet in hoc, ut possit fortunatam beatumque praestare. Non enim statim bonum est, si quid necessarium est; aut proicimus bonum, si hoc nomen pani et polentae damus et ceteris, sine quibus vita non ducitur.

What is good is certainly necessary; but what is necessary is not certainly good, since indeed some things that are necessary are also the cheapest of all. No one is so far ignorant of the dignity of the good as to drag it down to the level of these things useful for the day.

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

What then? Will you not rather turn your care to this — to show everyone that the superfluous is sought at a great cost of time, and that many have passed through life while they were hunting up the instruments of life? Review them one by one, consider them all together: no one’s life but looks toward tomorrow.

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

You ask what evil there is in this? An endless one. For they do not live, but are about to live. They put everything off. Even if we paid attention, life would still outrun us; but as it is, while we delay, it races past as though it were another’s, and it ends on the last day — though it has been perishing every day. But that I may not exceed a letter’s measure, which ought not to fill up the reader’s left hand, I will put off to another day this quarrel with the dialecticians — too subtle by half, who care only for this, and not for this as well. Farewell.

Quid in hoc sit mali, quaeris? Infinitum. Non enim vivunt, sed victuri sunt. Omnia differunt. Etiamsi adtenderemus, tamen nos vita praecurreret; nunc vero cunctantes quasi aliena transcurrit et ultimo die finitur, omni perit. Sed ne epistulae modum excedam, quae non debet sinistram manum legentis inplere, in alium diem hanc litem cum dialecticis differam nimium subtilibus et hoc solum curantibus, non et hoc. Vale.

Your book, which you had promised me, I received, and opened it as one meaning to read it at leisure, wishing only to taste it. Then it coaxed me itself to go further. How eloquent it was you may understand from this: it seemed light to me, though it was of neither my build nor yours, but such as at first sight might pass for Titus Livius’s or Epicurus’s. With such sweetness did it hold and draw me that I read it through without any delay. The sun invited me out, hunger warned me, the clouds threatened; yet I drained the whole of it.

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

I was not only delighted but glad. What genius the man has, what spirit! I would speak of his force, had it subsided at intervals, had it risen only now and then; but as it was, there was no mere burst but a sustained tenor, a composition manly and pure — and yet that sweetness broke in too, gentle in its place. You are grand, you are lofty; this I want you to hold to, to go on so. The subject matter did something too; so a fertile one should be chosen, which may take in the genius and spur it on.

Non tantum delectatus, sed gavisus sum. Quid ingenii iste habuit, quid animi! Dicerem, quid inpetus, si interquievisset, si ex intervallo surrexisset; nunc non fuit inpetus, sed tenor, conpositio virilis et sancta; nihilominus interveniebat dulce illud et loco lene. Grandis, erectus es; hoc te volo tenere, sic ire. Fecit aliquid et materia; ideo eligenda est fertilis, quae capiat ingenium, quae incitet.

I will write more about the book when I have gone over it again; for now my judgment is not quite settled, as though I had heard those things rather than read them. Let me examine it further as well. There is no reason for you to be afraid: you will hear the truth. O happy man, who have nothing on account of which anyone would lie to you from so far away — except that by now, even where the cause has been removed, we lie out of habit. Farewell.

De libro plura scribam cum illum retractavero; nunc parum mihi sedet iudicium, tamquam audierim illa, non legerim. Sine me et inquirere. Non est quod verearis; verum audies. O te hominem felicem, quod nihil habes, propter quod quisquam tibi tam longe mentiatur! Nisi quod iam etiam ubi causa sublata est, mentimur consuetudinis causa. Vale.

I have been glad to learn, from those who come from you, that you live on familiar terms with your slaves. This befits your good sense, this befits your learning. "They are slaves." No — men. "They are slaves." No — housemates. "They are slaves." No — humble friends. "They are slaves." No — fellow slaves, if you reflect that fortune has the same power over both.

Libenter ex is, qui a te veniunt, cognovi familiariter te cum servis tuis vivere. Hoc prudentiam tuam, hoc eruditionem decet. Servi sunt. Immo homines. Servi sunt. Immo contubernales. Servi sunt. Immo humiles amici. Servi sunt. Immo conservi, si cogitaveris tantundem in utrosque licere fortunae.

And so I laugh at those who think it shameful to dine with their own slave. Why, except that a most arrogant custom has set around the dining master a throng of standing slaves? He eats more than he can hold, and with monstrous greed loads a belly already stretched and grown unused to a belly’s office, so that he discharges it all with more labor than he took it in;

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

but the wretched slaves may not move their lips, not even for this, to speak. Every murmur is checked with the rod, and not even chance sounds are exempt from a beating — a cough, a sneeze, a hiccup. The silence, if broken by any voice, is paid for with heavy punishment. All night long they stand, fasting and dumb.

at infelicibus servis movere labra ne in hoc quidem, ut loquantur, licet. Virga murmur omne conpescitur, et ne fortuita quidem verberibus excepta sunt, tussis, sternumenta, singultus. Magno malo ulla voce interpellatum silentium luitur. Nocte tota ieiuni mutique perstant.

So it comes about that those men talk about their master who are not allowed to talk in their master’s presence. But those slaves who could converse not only before their masters but with them, whose mouths were not sewn shut, were ready to stretch out their necks for their master, to turn an impending danger upon their own heads; they talked at the feast, but under torture they kept silence.

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

Then, born of the same arrogance, the proverb is bandied about that we have as many enemies as we have slaves. They are not our enemies; we make them so. Meanwhile I pass over other cruel and inhuman things — that we abuse them not even as men, but as beasts of burden. When we have reclined to dine, one wipes up the spittle, another, crouched beneath the couch, gathers the leavings of the drunken guests.

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

Another carves the costly birds; passing his trained hand in fixed strokes round breast and rump, he strikes off the slices — a wretch who lives for this one thing, to cut up fattened fowl with elegance; save that more wretched is the man who teaches this for pleasure’s sake than the one who learns it from necessity.

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

Another, the wine-server, decked out in a woman’s fashion, wrestles with his age; he cannot escape boyhood, he is dragged back to it, and now, though of soldierly build, smooth-skinned, his body-hair rubbed away or wholly plucked out, he keeps watch all night long, which he divides between his master’s drunkenness and his lust — in the bedchamber a man, at the feast a boy.

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

Another, to whom the rating of the guests has been entrusted, stands by, poor wretch, and waits to see whom flattery and intemperance — whether of gullet or of tongue — will bring back tomorrow. Add the caterers, who have a fine knowledge of the master’s palate: who know what dish’s flavor rouses him, whose look delights him, by whose novelty he can be revived when queasy, what by now he loathes from sheer satiety, what he will hunger for on a given day. With these the master cannot bear to dine, and counts it a diminution of his majesty to come to the same table with his own slave. Heaven help us!

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

How many masters has he among these very men! I have seen the former master of Callistus standing before Callistus’s door, and the man who had pinned the sale-ticket on him, who had brought him out among the rejected merchandise, shut out while others went in. That slave, flung into the first lot — the one on which the auctioneer tries out his voice — paid him back in kind: he too struck the man off his list in turn, he too judged him unworthy of his house. The master sold Callistus; but how much Callistus exacted from his master!

Quot ex istis dominos habet! Stare ante limen Callisti dominum suum vidi et eum, qui illi inpegerat titulum, qui inter reicula mancipia produxerat, aliis intrantibus excludi. Rettulit illi gratiam servus ille in primam decuriam coniectus, in qua vocem praeco experitur; et ipse illum invicem apologavit, et ipse non iudicavit domo sua dignum. Dominus Callistum vendidit; sed domino quam multa Callistus!

Will you please consider that this man you call your slave sprang from the same seeds, enjoys the same sky, breathes alike, lives alike, dies alike? You can as well see him freeborn as he can see you a slave. In the disaster of Marius’s time fortune brought down many of the most splendid birth, men setting out by way of military service toward senatorial rank, and made one of them a shepherd, another the keeper of a hut. Despise now a man of that fortune, into which, even while you despise it, you yourself may pass.

Vis tu cogitare istum, quem servum tuum vocas, ex isdem seminibus ortum eodem frui caelo, aeque spirare, aeque vivere, aeque mori! tam tu illum videre ingenuum potes quam ille te servum. Mariana clade multos splendidissime natos, senatorium per militiam auspicantes gradum, fortuna depressit, alium ex illis pastorem, alium custodem casae fecit; contemne nunc eius fortunae hominem, in quam transire, dum contemnis, potes.

I do not wish to launch myself into a vast subject and dispute about the treatment of slaves, toward whom we are most arrogant, most cruel, most insulting. But this is the sum of my precept: live with your inferior as you would wish your superior to live with you. As often as it comes to mind how much is permitted you against your slave, let it come to mind that just as much is permitted your own master against you.

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

"But I," you say, "have no master." Your age is good; perhaps you will have one. Do you not know at what age Hecuba began to be a slave, or Croesus, or the mother of Darius, or Plato, or Diogenes?

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

Live with your slave with mercy, with courtesy even, and admit him to your conversation, to your counsel, to your table. At this point the whole pack of fops will shout at me: "Nothing is more degrading than this, nothing more shameful." Yet these same men I will catch kissing the hands of other men’s slaves.

Vive cum servo clementer, comiter quoque, et in sermonem illum admitte et in consilium et in convictum. Hoc loco adclamabit mihi tota manus delicatorum: Nihil hac re humilius, nihil turpius. Hos ego eosdem deprehendam alienorum servorum osculantes manum.

Do you not even see how our ancestors took away all that was hateful from the master’s part, all that was insulting from the slave’s? They called the master "father of the household," and the slaves "household members" (which still lasts in the mimes). They established a feast-day — not the only day on which masters ate with their slaves, but a day on which it was the rule; they allowed the slaves to hold offices in the house and to give judgment, and they judged the household to be a tiny commonwealth.

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

What then? Shall I bring all my slaves to my table? No more than all free men. You are wrong if you think I will reject certain ones as of dirtier work — that muleteer, say, or that cowherd; I will value them not by their tasks but by their characters. Each man gives himself his character; chance assigns the tasks. Let some dine with you because they are worthy, others that they may become so. For if there is anything servile in them, bred of low company, the society of more honorable men will shake it out.

Quid ergo? Omnes servos admovebo mensae meae? Non magis quam omnes liberos. Erras, si existimas me quosdam quasi sordidioris operae reiecturum, ut puta illum mulionem et illum bubulcum; non ministeriis illos aestimabo, sed moribus. Sibi quisque dat mores, ministeria casus adsignat. Quidam cenent tecum, quia digni sunt, quidam, ut sint. Si quid enim in illis, ex sordida conversatione servile est, honestiorum convictus excutiet.

There is no reason, my Lucilius, to seek a friend only in the Forum and the senate-house; if you attend carefully, you will find one at home as well. Often good material lies idle for want of a craftsman; make the trial, and you will find it so. As the man is foolish who, about to buy a horse, inspects not the horse itself but its saddle-cloth and bridle, so most foolish is he who values a man either by his clothing or by his condition, which is wrapped about us only in the manner of clothing.

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

"He is a slave." But perhaps free in spirit. "He is a slave." Will that harm him? Show me who is not. One is a slave to lust, another to greed, another to ambition, all to fear. I will give you a consular enslaved to a little old woman, a rich man enslaved to a serving-maid; I will show you young men of the noblest birth in bondage to pantomime-dancers. No slavery is more shameful than the voluntary kind. So there is no reason for those fastidious people to deter you from showing yourself cheerful to your slaves, and superior without arrogance; let them revere you rather than fear you.

Servus est. Sed fortasse liber animo. Servus est. Hoc illi nocebit? Ostende, quis non sit; alius libidini servit, alius avaritiae, alius ambitioni, omnes timori. Dabo consularem aniculae servientem, dabo ancillulae divitem, ostendam nobilissimos iuvenes mancipia pantomimorum! Nulla servitus turpior est quam voluntaria. Quare non est quod fastidiosi isti te deterreant, quo minus servis tuis hilarem te praestes et non superbe superiorem; colant potius te quam timeant.

Someone will now say that I am summoning slaves to the cap of freedom and casting masters down from their high estate, because I said: let them revere their master rather than fear him. "Just so," he says, "in so many words: are they to pay court like clients, like morning callers?" Whoever says this will forget that what is enough for a god is not too little for masters. He who is revered is also loved; and love cannot be mixed with fear.

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

So I judge that you do most rightly in not wishing to be feared by your slaves, in using the chastisement of words: with floggings only dumb beasts are corrected. Not everything that offends us also injures us. But our self-indulgence drives us to the point of frenzy, so that whatever does not answer to our will calls up our anger.

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

We put on the tempers of kings. For they too, forgetting both their own strength and the weakness of others, flare up and rage as though they had suffered a wrong — from the danger of which the very greatness of their fortune keeps them most safe. And they are not ignorant of this, but by complaining they snatch at an occasion for doing harm: they receive a wrong in order to inflict one.

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

I do not wish to detain you longer; for you have no need of exhortation. Good character has this among its other qualities: it pleases itself, it endures. Wickedness is fickle, it changes often — not for the better, but into something else. Farewell.

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

To the letter you sent me from your journey — as long as the journey itself — I will reply later. I must withdraw and look about for what to advise. For you too, who ask advice, considered a long while whether to ask it; how much more must I do so, when more delay is needed to solve a question than to pose it — especially when one thing is to your advantage, another to mine. Am I speaking again like an Epicurean?

Ad epistulam, quam mihi ex itinere misisti, tam longam quam ipsum iter fuit, postea rescribam. Seducere me debeo et quid suadeam circumspicere. Nam tu quoque, qui consulis, diu an consuleres cogitasti; quanto magis hoc mihi faciendum est, cum longiore mora opus sit, ut solvas quaestionem quam ut proponas? Utique cum aliud tibi expediat, aliud mihi. Iterum ego tamquam Epicureus loquor?

But the same thing is to my advantage as to yours; or else I am no friend, unless whatever concerns you is mine. Friendship makes a partnership of all things between us. Neither prosperity nor adversity belongs to either of us alone; we live in common. Nor can anyone live happily who regards only himself, who turns everything to his own uses; you must live for another, if you wish to live for yourself.

Mihi vero idem expedit, quod tibi; aut non sum amicus, nisi quicquid agitur ad te pertinens, meum est. Consortium rerum omnium inter nos facit amicitia. Nec secundi quicquam singulis est nec adversi; in commune vivitur. Nec potest quisquam beate degere, qui se tantum intuetur, qui omnia ad utilitates suas convertit; alteri vivas oportet, si vis tibi vivere.

This fellowship, carefully and reverently observed — which mixes us men with men and holds that there is some common right of the human race — contributes much also to cultivating that inner fellowship of friendship of which I was speaking. For the man who has much in common with a fellow human will have all things in common with a friend.

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

This, Lucilius, best of men, I would rather have those subtle fellows teach me — what I owe a friend, what I owe a fellow man — than in how many senses the word "friend" is used and how many things "man" signifies. See how wisdom and folly part in opposite directions: which do I join? To which side do you bid me go? For the one, a fellow human counts as a friend; for the other, a friend does not count as a fellow human. The one makes a friend for himself; the other makes himself for a friend. You, meanwhile, twist my words for me and parse out syllables.

Hoc, Lucili virorum optime, mihi ab istis subtilibus praecipi malo, quid amico praestare debeam, quid homini, quam quot modis amicus dicatur, et homo quam multa significet. In diversum ecce sapientia et stultitia discedunt; cui accedo? In utram ire partem iubes? Illi homo pro amico est, huic amicus non est pro homine. Ille amicum sibi parat, hic se amico. Tu mihi verba distorques et syllabas digeris.

Evidently, unless I construct the craftiest of questions and, by a false conclusion, bind fast a lie born of a truth, I shall not be able to tell apart what is to be sought from what is to be shunned. I am ashamed: in a matter so serious, we old men are playing games.

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

"Mouse" is a syllable. But a mouse gnaws cheese; therefore a syllable gnaws cheese. Suppose now that I cannot untie that knot. What danger threatens me from such ignorance? What harm? No doubt I must beware lest someday I catch syllables in a mousetrap, or lest someday, if I grow careless, a book eat my cheese. Unless perhaps this deduction is the sharper: "Mouse" is a syllable; but a syllable does not gnaw cheese; therefore a mouse does not gnaw cheese.

Mus syllaba est. Mus autem caseum rodit; syllaba ergo caseum rodit. Puta nunc me istuc non posse solvere. Quod mihi ex ista inscientia periculum inminet? Quod incommodum? Sine dubio verendum est, ne quando in muscipulo syllabas capiam aut ne quando, si neglegentior fuero, caseum liber comedat. Nisi forte illa acutior est collectio: Mus syllaba est. Syllaba autem caseum non rodit; mus ergo caseum non rodit.

What childish trifles! Was it for this that we arched our brows? For this that we let our beards grow long? Is this what we teach, grim and pale? Do you wish to know what philosophy promises to the human race? Counsel. One man death summons; another poverty scorches; another riches torment — whether another’s or his own. This one shudders at ill fortune; that one longs to escape his own good fortune. This man is ill-used by men, that one by the gods.

O pueriles ineptias! In hoc supercilia subduximus? In hoc barbam demisimus? Hoc est, quod tristes docemus et pallidi? Vis scire, quid philosophia promittat generi humano? Consilium. Alium mors vocat, alium paupertas urit, alium divitiae vel alienae torquent vel suae. Ille malam fortunam horret, hic se felicitati suae subducere cupit. Hunc homines male habent, illum di.

Why do you put together these playthings for me? This is no place for joking; you have been called in to the wretched. You promised to bring aid to the shipwrecked, the captive, the sick, the needy, to those who lay their heads beneath the poised axe. Where are you wandering off to? What are you doing? This man with whom you play is afraid; come to his rescue. From every side they all stretch out their hands to you; for lives lost and about to perish they implore some help; in you are their hope and their resources. They beg you to drag them out of so great a churning, and to show, to men scattered and astray, the clear light of truth.

Quid mihi lusoria ista conponis? Non est iocandi locus; ad miseros advocatus es. Opem laturum te naufragis, captis, aegris, egentibus, intentae securi subiectum praestantibus caput pollicitus es. Quo diverteris? Quid agis? Hic, cum quo ludis, timet; succurre, †quidquid laqueti res pendentium penis.† Omnes undique ad te manus tendunt, perditae vitae perituraeque auxilium aliquod inplorant, in te spes opesque sunt. Rogant, ut ex tanta illos volutatione extrahas, ut disiectis et errantibus clarum veritatis lumen ostendas.

Tell me what nature has made necessary, what superfluous; how easy the laws she has laid down; how pleasant life is, and how unencumbered for those who follow them, how bitter and tangled for those who have trusted opinion more than nature. I would believe these playthings able to lighten such men’s ills, if you first taught me which part of those ills they will lighten. Which of these men’s desires do they take away? Which do they temper? Would that they merely did no good! They do harm. This I will make most plain to you, when you wish: that a noble nature, thrown into these subtleties, is crippled and weakened.

Dic, quid natura necessarium fecerit, quid supervacuum, quam faciles leges posuerit, quam iucunda sit vita, quam expedita illas sequentibus, quam acerba et inplicita eorum, qui opinioni plus quam naturae crediderunt. Ad horum mala levanda valere lusoria ista crediderim, si prius docueris, quam partem eorum levatura sint. Quid istorum cupiditates demit? Quid temperat? Utinam tantum non prodessent! Nocent. Hoc tibi, cum voles, manifestissimum faciam, comminui et debilitari generosam indolem in istas argutias coniectam.

I am ashamed to say what weapons they hand to men who would make war on fortune, how they equip them. Is this the road to the highest good? Through such catch-traps of philosophy, and the quibbling exceptions disgraceful and disreputable even to those who sit by the praetor’s notice-board? For what else are you doing, when you knowingly lead the man you question into a trap, than making it look as though he had lost his case on a technicality? But just as the praetor restores such men to their former standing, so philosophy restores these.

Pudet dicere, contra fortunam militaturis quae porrigant tela, quemadmodum illos subornent. Hac ad summum bonum itur? Per istud philosophia sive nive et turpes infamesque etiam ad album sedentibus exceptiones? Quid enim aliud agitis, cum eum, quem interrogatis, scientes in fraudem inducitis, quam ut formula cecidisse videatur? Sed quemadmodum illos praetor, sic hos philosophia in integrum restituit.

Is this the way to the stars?

Sic itur ad astra?

So, as far as you can, my Lucilius, draw yourself back from these exceptions and demurrers of the philosophers. Open and simple things befit goodness. Even if much of life were left, it would have to be spent sparingly, that it might suffice for what is necessary; as it is, what madness it is to learn the superfluous in so great a poverty of time? Farewell.

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

He is indeed a slack and careless man, my Lucilius, who is led to the memory of a friend only when some region prompts him; yet at times familiar places call up the longing stored away in our minds, and do not give back a memory that was extinguished, but stir one that was at rest — as the grief of mourners, even when softened by time, is renewed by a favorite slave of the lost one, or a garment, or a house. Look: Campania, and above all Naples and the sight of your Pompeii, have made the longing for you, incredibly, fresh again; you are wholly before my eyes. I am parting from you at this very moment. I see you swallowing your tears and not resisting strongly enough the feelings that break out in the very act of holding them back. I seem to have lost you only just now.

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

For what is not "just now," if you call it to mind? Just now I sat as a boy at the feet of the philosopher Sotion; just now I began to plead cases; just now I ceased to wish to plead; just now I ceased to be able. Endless is the swiftness of time, which appears more plainly to those who look back. For it deceives those intent on the present — so smooth is the passage of its headlong flight.

Quid enim non modo est, si recorderis? Modo apud Sotionem philosophum puer sedi, modo causas agere coepi, modo desii velle agere, modo desii posse. Infinita est velocitas temporis, quae magis apparet respicientibus. Nam ad praesentia intentos fallit; adeo praecipitis fugae transitus lenis est.

You ask the cause of this? Whatever time passes is in the same place; it is viewed all alike, it lies all together. Everything falls into the same abyss. And besides, there cannot be long intervals in a thing that is wholly short. A point is what we live, and even less than a point. Yet this least of things, too, nature has mocked with a certain appearance of a longer span: out of it she made one part infancy, another boyhood, another youth, another a kind of slope down from youth toward old age, and another old age itself. Into how narrow a space — how many steps she has set!

Causam huius rei quaeris? Quicquid temporis transit, eodem loco est; pariter aspicitur, una iacet. Omnia in idem profundum cadunt. Et alioqui non possunt longa intervalla esse in ea re, quae tota brevis est. Punctum est quod vivimus et adhuc puncto minus. Sed et hoc minimum specie quadam longioris spatii natura derisit; aliud ex hoc infantiam fecit, aliud pueritiam, aliud adulescentiam, aliud inclinationem quandam ab adulescentia ad senectutem, aliud ipsam senectutem. In quam angusto quodam quot gradus posuit!

Just now I saw you off; and yet this "just now" is a good part of our life, whose brevity, let us reflect, will one day fail us altogether. Time did not use to seem to me so swift; now its course appears incredible — whether because I feel the finish-line drawing near, or because I have begun to pay attention and to reckon up my loss.

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

And so I am the more indignant that some men spend the greater part of this time — which cannot suffice even for what is necessary, however carefully it is guarded — on the superfluous. Cicero says that if his life were doubled he would still not have time to read the lyric poets; put the dialecticians in the same class — they are foolish more grimly. The lyric poets trifle by open profession; these men think they are actually doing something.

Eo magis itaque indignor aliquos ex hoc tempore, quod sufficere ne ad necessaria quidem potest, etiam si custoditum diligentissime fuerit, in supervacua maiorem partem erogare. Negat Cicero, si duplicetur sibi aetas, habiturum se tempus, quo legat lyricos; eodem loco pone dialecticos; tristius inepti sunt. Illi ex professo lasciviunt, hi agere ipsos aliquid existimant.

Nor do I deny that these matters should be looked into — but only looked into, and greeted from the threshold, for this one purpose: that we not be cheated by words and judge there to be in them some great and hidden good. Why torment and waste yourself over a question which it is more subtle to have despised than to solve? It is for the man who is secure and moving house at his leisure to gather up the trifles; when the enemy presses at his back and the soldier is ordered to move, necessity shakes out whatever idle peace had collected.

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

See what peoples gather, what cities behind shut gates whet the sword.

Adspice qui coeant populi, quae moenia clusis Ferrum acuant portis.

I would rightly seem mad to everyone if, while old men and women were piling up stones to strengthen the walls, while the armed youth within the gates awaited or demanded the signal for a sortie, while the enemy’s spears quivered in the gates and the very ground trembled with trenches and mines, I sat idle, posing little questions of this kind: "What you have not lost, you have; but you have not lost horns; therefore you have horns" — and others trimmed to the pattern of this sharp lunacy.

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

And yet I may just as well seem mad to you if I spend my effort on those things; and I too am under siege now. But then, in that case, a danger from outside would threaten me as I was besieged, a wall would divide me from the enemy; now the deadly things are within me. I have no leisure for those trifles; a huge business is in my hands. What am I to do? Death pursues me, life flees; against these, teach me something.

Atqui aeque licet tibi demens videar, si istis inpendero operam; et nunc obsideor. Tunc tamen periculum mihi obsesso externum inmineret, murus me ab hoste secerneret; nunc mortifera mecum sunt. Non vaco ad istas ineptias; ingens negotium in manibus est. Quid agam? Mors me sequitur, fugit vita; adversus haec me doce aliquid.

Bring it about that I do not flee from death, that life does not flee from me. Hearten me against hardships, add an even temper against what cannot be avoided. Loosen the narrow bounds of my time. Teach me that the good of life lies not in its length but in its use, and that it can happen — indeed most often happens — that one who has lived long has lived little. Say to me as I go to sleep: "You may not wake"; and to me when I have waked: "You may not sleep again." Say to me as I go out: "You may not return"; and as I return: "You may not go out again."

Effice, ut ego mortem non fugiam, vita me non effugiat. Exhortare adversus difficilia, adde aequanimitatem adversus inevitabilia. Angustias temporis mei laxa. Doce non esse positum bonum vitae in spatio eius, sed in usu, posse fieri, immo saepissime fieri, ut qui diu vixit, parum vixerit. Dic mihi dormituro: Potes non expergisci; dic experrecto: Potes non dormire amplius. Dic exeunti: Potes non reverti; dic redeunti: Potes non exire.

You are wrong if you think that only on a voyage is the gap by which life is parted from death a tiny one; in every place the interval is just as thin. Death does not everywhere show itself so near; everywhere it is just as near. Scatter this darkness, and you will more easily hand over the things for which I am prepared. Nature brought us forth teachable, and gave us a reason imperfect, but such as could be perfected.

Erras, si in navigatione tantum existimas minimum esse, quo a morte vita diducitur; in omni loco aeque tenue intervallum est. Non ubique se mors tam prope ostendit; ubique tam prope est. Has tenebras discute; et facilius ea trades, ad quae praeparatus sum. Dociles natura nos edidit et rationem dedit inperfectam, sed quae perfici posset.

The speech of truth is simple.

Veritatis simplex oratio est.

I received your letter many months after you had sent it. So I thought it superfluous to ask the man who delivered it what you were doing – for he has a very good memory, if he remembers! And yet I hope you now live in such a way that, wherever you are, I know what you are doing. For what else are you doing than making yourself better each day, laying aside some error, coming to understand that the faults you think belong to circumstances are your own? For we ascribe certain things to places and times; but those faults, wherever we move, will follow us.

Epistulam tuam accepi post multos menses quam miseras. Supervacuum itaque putavi ab eo, qui adferebat, quid ageres quaerere. Valde enim bonae memoriae est, si meminit! Et tamen spero te sic iam vivere, ut ubicumque eris, sciam quid agas. Quid enim aliud agis quam ut meliorem te ipse cottidie facias, ut aliquid ex erroribus ponas, ut intellegas tua vitia esse, quae putas rerum? Quaedam enim locis et temporibus adscribimus. At illa, quocumque transierimus, secutura sunt.

You know that Harpaste, my wife’s fool, has stayed on in my house as an inherited burden; for I myself am thoroughly averse to such freaks, and if ever I want amusement from a fool, I need not look far – I laugh at myself. This fool has suddenly lost her sight. I tell you an incredible thing, but true: she does not know she is blind. Again and again she asks her attendant to move house. She says the house is dark.

Harpasten, uxoris meae fatuam, scis hereditarium onus in domo mea remansisse. Ipse enim aversissimus ab istis prodigiis sum; si quando fatuo delectari volo, non est mihi longe quaerendus; me rideo. Haec fatua subito desiit videre. Incredibilem rem tibi narro, sed veram: nescit esse se caecam. Subinde paedagogum suum rogat ut migret. Ait domum tenebricosam esse.

What we laugh at in her, be it clear to you, happens to all of us: no one understands that he is greedy, no one that he is covetous. Yet the blind seek a guide, while we wander without one and say: "I am not ambitious, but no one can live otherwise at Rome. I am not extravagant, but the city itself demands great expense. It is not my fault that I am quick-tempered, that I have not yet settled on a fixed way of life; this is what youth does."

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

Why do we deceive ourselves? Our evil is not from outside; it is within us, it sits in the very vitals, and we reach health with difficulty for this reason – that we do not know we are sick. If we should begin to be cured, when shall we shake off the great force of so many diseases? But as it is, we do not even seek a physician, who would have less trouble if he were called in to a fresh disorder. The young and untrained minds would follow him as he pointed out the right way.

Quid nos decipimus? Non est extrinsecus malum nostrum; intra nos est, in visceribus ipsis sedet, et ideo difficulter ad sanitatem pervenimus, quia nos aegrotare nescimus. Si curari coeperimus, quando tot morborum tantas vires discutiemus? Nunc vero ne quaerimus quidem medicum, qui minus negotii haberet, si adhiberetur ad recens vitium. Sequerentur teneri et rudes animi recta monstrantem.

No one is brought back to nature with difficulty, except the one who has deserted her. We blush to learn sound sense; but, by Hercules, if it is shameful to seek a teacher of this, then that other hope must be abandoned – that so great a good could fall to us by chance. We must work; and, to tell the truth, the work is not even great, if only, as I said, we begin to shape and straighten our mind before its crookedness hardens. But not even when it has hardened do I despair.

Nemo difficulter ad naturam reducitur, nisi qui ab illa defecit. Erubescimus discere bonam mentem; at mehercules, si turpe est magistrum huius rei quaerere, illud desperandum est, posse nobis casu tantum bonum induere. Laborandum est, et ut verum dicam, ne labor quidem magnus est, si modo, ut dixi, ante animum nostrum formare incipimus et recorrigere, quam indurescat pravitas eius. Sed nec indurata despero.

There is nothing that persistent toil and intent, careful care does not overcome; oak-trunks however bent you will call back to straightness. Heat unbends warped beams, and timbers grown otherwise are fashioned into what our use demands; how much more easily does the mind take its shape, pliable and more yielding than any moisture. For what else is the mind than breath disposed in a certain way? And you see that breath is more workable than any other matter, by as much as it is finer.

Nihil est, quod non expugnet pertinax opera et intenta ac diligens cura; robora in rectum quamvis flexa revocabis. Curvatas trabes calor explicat et aliter natae in id finguntur, quod usus noster exigit; quanto facilius animus accipit formam, flexibilis et omni umore obsequentior. Quid enim est aliud animus quam quodam modo se habens spiritus? Vides autem tanto spiritum esse faciliorem omni alia materia, quanto tenuior est.

There is no reason, my Lucilius, why this should keep you from hoping well of us – that wickedness already holds us, that it has long been in possession of us; sound sense comes to no one before the bad. We are all preoccupied. To learn the virtues is to unlearn the vices.

Illud, mi Lucili, non est quod te inpediat, quo minus de nobis bene speres, quod malitia nos iam tenet, quod diu in possessione nostri est; ad neminem ante bona mens venit quam mala. Omnes praeoccupati sumus. Virtutes discere vitia dediscere est.

We ought to approach our own amendment with all the greater spirit because, once the good has been handed over to us, its possession is perpetual; virtue is not unlearned. For its opposites cling badly in a place not their own, and so can be driven off and routed; what comes into its own place sits faithfully. Virtue is according to nature; the vices are its enemies and hostile.

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

But just as virtues, once received, cannot depart, and their keeping is easy, so the first step toward them is steep, because it is the property of a weak and sick mind to dread the untried. So it must be forced to begin; then the medicine is not bitter. For it delights at once, even while it heals. With other remedies the pleasure comes after the cure; philosophy is at once both wholesome and sweet. Farewell.

Sed quemadmodum virtutes receptae exire non possunt facilisque earum tutela est, ita initium ad illas eundi arduum, quia hoc proprium inbecillae mentis atque aegrae est, formidare inexperta. Itaque cogenda est, ut incipiat; deinde non est acerba medicina. Protinus enim delectat, dum sanat. Aliorum remediorum post sanitatem voluptas est, philosophia pariter et salutaris et dulcis est. Vale.

Each as he can, my Lucilius! You there have Etna, that lofty and most famous mountain of Sicily – why Messala called it "unique," or Valgius (for I have read it in both), I cannot discover, since very many places spew fire, not only lofty ones (which happens more often, no doubt because fire is carried up to the greatest height) but even low-lying ones. We, as best we can, are content with Baiae, which I left the day after I reached it – a place to be shunned for this reason: that though it has certain natural gifts, luxury has marked it out as its own resort.

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

What then? Is hatred to be declared against any place? By no means. But just as one garment suits a wise and upright man more than another, and he hates no color but thinks some too little fitting for one who has professed frugality, so there is also a region that the wise man, or one striving toward wisdom, turns away from as alien to good morals.

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

And so, thinking of retirement, he will never choose Canopus – though Canopus forbids no one to be frugal – nor even Baiae; they have begun to be the lodging-house of the vices. There luxury grants itself the most; there, as if some license were owed to the place, it lets itself go more loosely.

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

We ought to choose a place healthful not only for the body but also for the morals. Just as I would not wish to dwell among torturers, so neither among cookshops. What need is there to see drunkards wandering along the shores, and the carousing of men in boats, and the lakes loud with the songs of music-bands, and the other things that luxury – as if loosed from the laws – not only commits but parades?

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

We ought to act so as to flee the incitements of the vices as far as we can. The mind must be hardened and dragged far from the blandishments of pleasures. A single winter’s quarters undid Hannibal, and the comforts of Campania unmanned the man whom snows and the Alps had not conquered. He conquered by arms; he was conquered by vices.

Id agere debemus, ut irritamenta vitiorum quam longissime profugiamus. Indurandus est animus et a blandimentis voluptatum procul abstrahendus. Una Hannibalem hiberna solverunt et indomitum illum nivibus atque Alpibus virum enervaverunt fomenta Campaniae. Armis vicit, vitiis victus est.

We too must serve as soldiers, and indeed in a kind of warfare where no rest, no leisure is ever given. First of all the pleasures must be warred down, which, as you see, have carried off even savage natures to themselves. If a man sets before himself how great a task he has undertaken, he will know that nothing is to be done delicately, nothing softly. What have I to do with those steaming pools? What with the sweating-rooms, into which dry vapor is shut to drain the body? Let all sweat come out through toil.

Nobis quoque militandum est, et quidem genere militiae, quo numquam quies, numquam otium datur. Debellandae sunt in primis voluptates, quae, ut vides, saeva quoque ad se ingenia rapuerunt. Si quis sibi proposuerim quantum operis adgressus sit, sciet nihil delicate, nihil molliter esse faciendum. Quid mihi cum istis calentibus stagnis? Quid cum sudatoriis, in quae siccus vapor corpora exhausurus includitur? Omnis sudor per laborem exeat.

If we did what Hannibal did – breaking off the course of affairs and abandoning the war to spend our effort on coddling our bodies – everyone would rightly blame the untimely sloth, dangerous even to a victor, far more to one still winning. We who follow the Punic standards are permitted less than they: more danger remains for us if we yield, more labor too even if we persevere.

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

Fortune wages war with me; I will not do what she commands. I do not take on the yoke – rather, what calls for the greater virtue, I shake it off. The mind must not be softened: if I yield to pleasure, I must yield to pain, must yield to toil, must yield to poverty; ambition and anger too will claim the same right over me; among so many passions I shall be pulled apart – no, torn to pieces.

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

Freedom is set before us; for this prize we labor. You ask what freedom is? To be slave to nothing, to no necessity, to no chances; to bring fortune down onto level ground. On the day I understand that I have more power than she, she will have none. Shall I endure her, when death is in my hand?

Libertas proposita est; ad hoc praemium laboratur. Quae sit libertas, quaeris? Nulli rei servire, nulli necessitati, nullis casibus, fortunam in aequum deducere. Quo die illa me intellexero plus posse, nil poterit. Ego illam feram, cum in manu mors sit?

One intent on these thoughts ought to choose grave and holy places. Too much loveliness unmans the spirit, and without doubt a region can do something to corrupt one’s vigor. Beasts of burden endure any road whose hoof has been hardened on rough ground; fattened in a soft and marshy pasture they are quickly worn through. The braver soldier comes from rugged country; the city-bred and the home-born slave is sluggish. Hands transferred from the plough to arms refuse no labor; that oiled and glossy fellow fails at the first dust.

His cogitationibus intentum loca seria sanctaque eligere oportet. Effeminat animos amoenitas nimia nec dubie aliquid ad corrumpendum vigorem potest regio. Quamlibet viam iumenta patiuntur, quorum durata in aspero ungula est; in molli palustrique pascuo saginata cito subteruntur. Et fortior miles ex confragoso venit; segnis est urbanus et verna. Nullum laborem recusant manus, quae ad arma ab aratro transferuntur; in primo deficit pulvere ille unctus et nitidus.

The harsher discipline of a place strengthens the character and makes it fit for great endeavors. Scipio went into exile more honorably at Liternum than at Baiae; a fall like his is not to be laid down so softly. Those too to whom the fortune of the Roman people first transferred the public wealth – Gaius Marius and Gnaeus Pompey and Caesar – did indeed build villas in the region of Baiae, but they set them on the highest mountain-ridges. This seemed more soldierly: to look out from on high over the country spread far and wide below. See what position they chose, on what sites and of what kind they raised their buildings: you will know they are not villas but camps.

Severior loci disciplina firmat ingenium aptumque magnis conatibus reddit. Literni honestius Scipio quam Bais exulabat; ruina eius non est tam molliter conlocanda. Illi quoque, ad quos primos fortuna populi Romani publicas opes transtulit, C. Marius et Cn. Pompeius et Caesar extruxerunt quidem villas in regione Baiana, sed illas inposuerunt summis iugis montium. Videbatur hoc magis militare, ex edito speculari late longeque subiecta. Aspice, quam positionem elegerint, quibus aedificia excitaverunt locis et qualia; scies non villas esse, sed castra.

Do you think Cato would ever have lived in a fancy little villa, to count the adulteresses sailing past, and the so many kinds of skiff painted in varied colors, and the rose floating over the whole lake, to hear the nocturnal brawls of singers? Would he not have preferred to stay inside a rampart that he had traced with his own hand in a single night? Why would not anyone who is a man rather have his sleep broken by a war-trumpet than by a music-band?

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

But we have quarreled long enough with Baiae; never enough with the vices – which, I beg you, Lucilius, pursue without measure, without end. For they too have neither end nor measure. Throw off whatever tears at your heart, which, if it could not be drawn out otherwise, the heart itself would have to be torn out along with it. Above all expel the pleasures and hold them most hateful; like the brigands the Egyptians call philetae, "lovers," they embrace us for this – to strangle us. Farewell.

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

What is this, Lucilius, that drags us one way while we strive another, and drives us toward the place from which we long to withdraw? What wrestles with our mind and does not let us will anything once for all? We are tossed among shifting plans. We will nothing freely, nothing absolutely, nothing always.

Quid est hoc, Lucili, quod nos alio tendentes alio trahit et eo, unde recedere cupimus, inpellit? Quid conluctatur cum animo nostro nec permittit nobis quicquam semel velle? Fluctuamur inter varia consilia. Nihil libere volumus, nihil absolute, nihil semper.

"It is folly," you say, "that has nothing fixed, nothing that pleases for long." But how or when shall we tear ourselves away from it? No one is strong enough by himself to surface; someone must reach out a hand, someone must lead him up.

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

Epicurus says that some have come through to the truth without anyone’s help, having made their own road. These he praises most – those whose impulse came from themselves, who carried themselves forward. Others, he says, need help from outside: they will not go if no one goes ahead, but they will follow well. Of these, he says, is Metrodorus: an excellent nature too, but of the second rank. We are not of that first class; it goes well with us if we are received into the second. Do not despise even this man, who can be saved by another’s kindness; for even this is much – to be willing to be saved.

Quosdam ait Epicurus ad veritatem sine ullius adiutorio exisse, fecisse sibi ipsos viam. Hos maxime laudat, quibus ex se impetus fuit, qui se ipsi protulerunt. Quosdam indigere ope aliena, non ituros, si nemo praecesserit, sed bene secuturos. Ex his Metrodorum ait esse; egregium hoc quoque, sed secundae sortis ingenium. Nos ex illa prima nota non sumus; bene nobiscum agitur, si in secundam recipimur. Ne hunc quidem contempseris hominem, qui alieno beneficio esse salvus potest; et hoc multum est, velle servari.

Besides these you will find yet another kind of men, itself not to be scorned: those who can be forced and driven to the right, who need not only a leader but a helper and, so to speak, a compeller. This is the third shade. If you want an example of this too, Epicurus says Hermarchus was such. And so he congratulates the one more, but the other he admires more; for although each arrived at the same end, the greater praise is to have achieved the same thing in harder material.

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

Suppose two buildings raised up, unlike from the bottom, equally high and magnificent. One received a clean site; there the work rose at once. The other’s foundations wore men out, sunk into soft and oozing ground, and much labor was spent before the solid was reached. To one looking at them, whatever the first builder did is in the open; of the other the great and harder part lies hidden.

Puta enim duo aedificia excitata esse, ab imo disparia, aeque excelsa atque magnifica. Alterum puram aream accepit; illic protinus opus crevit. Alterum fundamenta lassarunt in mollem et fluvidam humum missa multumque laboris exhaustum est, dum pervenitur ad solidum. Intuenti ambo quicquid fecit alter in aperto est, alterius magna pars et difficilior latet.

Some natures are easy, ready to hand; some must be built up by hand, as they say, and are taken up with their own foundations. And so I should call the one happier, who had no trouble with himself, but the other to have deserved better of himself, who conquered the malignity of his own nature and did not lead himself to wisdom but dragged himself there.

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

You may take it that this hard and laborious nature has been given to us. We go forward through things that stand in our way. So let us fight, let us call on someone’s help. "Whom," you say, "shall I call on? This man or that?" You may turn back even to the men of old, who are at leisure; not only those who are can help us, but those who have been.

Hoc durum ac laboriosum ingenium nobis datum scias licet. Imus per obstantia. Itaque pugnemus, aliquorum invocemus auxilium. Quem, inquis, invocabo? Hunc aut illum? Tu vero etiam ad priores revertere, qui vacant; adiuvare nos possunt non tantum qui sunt, sed qui fuerunt.

But of those who are, let us choose not the men who pour out words at great speed and roll out commonplaces and play the crowd-gatherer in private, but those who teach by their life, who, when they have said what must be done, prove it by doing, who teach what must be avoided and are never caught in the very thing they said must be fled. Choose as your helper one you admire more when you have seen him than when you have heard him.

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

Not that I would forbid you to hear these too, whose custom it is to admit the public and discourse – provided they come before the crowd with this purpose, to become better and to make others better, and do not practice it for ambition’s sake. For what is fouler than philosophy hunting applause? Does the sick man praise the surgeon as he cuts?

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

Be silent, give your goodwill, and submit yourselves to the treatment. Even if you cry out, I will hear it no otherwise than as a groan at the touching of your own sores. You want to testify that you are attending and are moved by the greatness of the matter? By all means, let it be allowed; but that you should pass judgment and cast your vote for the better part – why would I not permit it? With Pythagoras the disciples had to keep silent for five years; do you suppose they were at once allowed both to speak and to praise?

Tacete, favete et praebete vos curationi. Etiam si exclamaveritis, non aliter audiam, quam si ad tactum vitiorum vestrorum ingemescatis. Testari vultis adtendere vos moverique magnitudine rerum? Sane liceat; ut quidem iudicetis et feratis de meliore suffragium, quidni non permittam? Apud Pythagoram discipulis quinque annis tacendum erat; numquid ergo existimas statim illis et loqui et laudare licuisse?

How great is the madness of the man whom the shouts of the ignorant send away cheerful from the lecture-hall! Why do you rejoice that you have been praised by men you yourself cannot praise? Fabianus used to discourse to the public, but he was heard with restraint. Now and then a great shout of praise would burst out, but one the greatness of the matter had called forth, not the sound of a speech slipping out smoothly and softly.

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

Let there be some difference between the shout of a theater and of a school; there is a certain decency even in praising. All things, if observed, are signs of all things, and you may take proof of character even from the smallest: the unchaste man is shown by his gait, by a moved hand, sometimes by a single reply, by a finger raised to the head, by the turning of the eyes. The laugh shows the scoundrel; the face and bearing show the madman. For these things come into the open through their marks; what each man is, you will know if you look at how he praises and how he is praised.

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

From this side and that the listener stretches out his hands to the philosopher, and the crowd of admirers stands over his very head; he is not praised now, if you understand it, but acclaimed. Let those cries be left to the arts whose aim is to please the public; let philosophy be adored.

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

Young men will sometimes have to be allowed to follow the impulse of their spirit – but only then, when they do it from real impulse, when they cannot command silence on themselves. Such praise carries some exhortation to the very hearers and goads the spirits of the young. Let them be stirred to the matter, not to composed words; otherwise eloquence harms them, if it breeds not a desire for the things, but for itself.

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

I will put this off for now; for it needs its own long working-out: how one must discourse to the public, what one may permit oneself before the public, and the public before oneself. That philosophy has suffered loss will be beyond doubt, once it has been prostituted. But it can be shown in its inner shrine – if only it gets, not a peddler, but a priest. Farewell.

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

What can I not be persuaded into, when I was persuaded to go to sea? I cast off on a sluggish sea. The sky, no doubt, was heavy with dirty clouds, which usually break up into either rain or wind. But I thought those few miles from your Parthenope all the way to Puteoli could be filched, however doubtful and threatening the sky. And so, to get clear the faster, I made straight across the deep for Nesis, meaning to cut off all the curves of the coast.

Quid non potest milli mihi persuaderi, cui persuasum est ut navigarem? Solvi mari languido. Erat sine dubio caelum grave sordidis nubibus, quae fere aut in aquasm aquam aut in ventum resolvuntur. Sed putavi tam pauca milia a Parthenope tua usque Puteolos subripi posse, quamvis dubio et inpendente caelo. Itaque quo celerius evaderem, protinus per altum ad Nesida derexi praecisurus omnes sinus.

When I had gone so far that it made no difference whether I went on or turned back, first that smoothness which had seduced me vanished. It was not yet a storm, but the sea was already heeling over, and the swell came thicker and thicker. I began to beg the helmsman to set me ashore somewhere. He kept saying the coast there was rough and harborless, and that in a storm he feared nothing so much as the land.

Cum iam eo processissent, ut mea nihil interesset, utrum irem an redirem, primum aequalitas illa, quae me corruperat, periit. Nondum erat tempestas, sed iam inclinatio maris ac subinde crebrior fluctus. Coepi gubernatorem rogare, ut me in aliquo litore exponeret. Aiebat illo aspera esse et inportuosa nec quicquam se aeque in tempestate timere quam terram.

They turn their prows to the sea; the anchor is cast from the prow.

Obvertunt pelago proras Ancora de prora iacitur,

What do you suppose I endured, while I crawled through the rough water, while I sought a way, while I made one? I understood that sailors do not fear the land without cause. Incredible are the things I bore, when I could not bear myself; know this – that Ulysses was not born to so wrathful a sea that he made shipwreck everywhere; he was seasick. And I too, wherever I have to sail, will arrive in the twentieth year.

Quae putas me passum, dum per aspera erepo, dum viam quaero, dum facio? Intellexi non inmerito nautis terram timeri. Incredibilia sunt, quae tulerim, cum me ferre non possem; illud scito, Vlixem non fuisse tam irato mari natum, ut ubique naufragia faceret; nausiator erat. Et ego quocumque navigare debuero, vicensimo anno perveniam.

As soon as I had collected my stomach – which, as you know, does not escape the nausea when it escapes the sea – and revived my body with the oil-rubbing, I began to think over with myself how great a forgetfulness of our own faults pursues us – even of the bodily ones, which keep reminding us of themselves, let alone of those that lie the more hidden the greater they are.

Ut primum stomachum, quem scis non cum mari nausiam effugere, collegi, ut corpus unctione recreavi, hoc coepi mecum cogitare, quanta nos vitiorum nostrorum sequeretur oblivio, etiam corporalium, quae subinde admonent sui, nedum illorum, quae eo magis latent, quo maiora sunt.

A slight little spasm deceives a man; but when it has grown and a true fever has flared, it wrings a confession even from the hard and long-suffering. The feet ache, the joints feel little pricks; still we dissemble and say either that we have wrenched an ankle or strained ourselves at some exercise. While the disease is doubtful and just beginning, a name is sought for it; but once it has begun to strain the ankle-bones too and has made both feet a matching pair, there is no choice but to confess the gout.

Levis aliquem motiuncula decipit; sed cum crevit et vera febris exarsit, etiam duro et perpessicio confessionem excipit Pedes dolent, articuli punctiunculas sentiunt; adhuc dissimulamus et aut talum extorsisse dicimus nos aut in exercitatione aliqua laborasse. Dubio et incipiente morbo quaeritur nomen, qui ubi etiam talaria coepit intendere et utrosque dextros pedes fecit, necesse est podagram fateri.

The opposite happens in those diseases by which the mind is afflicted: the worse a man is, the less he feels it. There is no reason to wonder, dearest Lucilius. For he who sleeps lightly both has visions in his rest and sometimes, sleeping, thinks that he is asleep; a heavy slumber blots out even dreams and sinks the mind too deep for any awareness of itself.

Contra evenit in his morbis, quibus adficiuntur animi; quo quis peius se habet, minus sentit. Non est quod mireris, Lucili carissime. Nam qui leviter dormit, et species secundum quietem capit et aliquando dormire se dormiens cogitat; gravis sopor etiam somnia extinguit animumque altius mergit, quam ut in ullo intellectu sui sit.

Why does no one confess his faults? Because he is still in them; to tell a dream belongs to one awake, and to confess one’s faults is a sign of health. So let us wake, that we may be able to convict our errors. But philosophy alone will rouse us, alone will shake off the heavy sleep. Dedicate yourself wholly to her. You are worthy of her, she is worthy of you; go into each other’s embrace. Refuse yourself to all else, bravely, openly. There is no reason to do your philosophy on sufferance.

Quare vitia sua nemo confitetur? Quia etiamnunc in illis est; somnium narrare vigilantis est, et vitia sua confiteri sanitatis indicium est. Expergiscamur ergo, ut errores nostros coarguere possimus. Sola autem nos philosophia excitabit, sola somnum excutiet gravem. Illi te totum dedica. Dignus illa es, illa digna te est; ite in conplexum complexum alter alterius. Omnibus aliis rebus te nega, fortiter, aperte. Non est quod precario philosopheris.

If you were sick, you would have broken off the care of your estate, and the business of the forum would have slipped from you, nor would you think anyone so important that you would go down to plead his case in a lull of your illness. With your whole mind you would work at one thing: to be freed from the disease as soon as possible. What then? Will you not do the same now too? Dismiss every hindrance and make yourself free for a sound mind: no one reaches it who is preoccupied. Philosophy wields her own sovereignty; she gives time, she does not take it. She is no spare-moment thing; she is the regular business; she is mistress, and bids you attend.

Si aeger esses, curam intermisisses rei familiaris et forensia tibi negotia excidissent nec quemquam tanti putares, cui advocatus in remissione descenderes. Toto animo id ageres, ut quam primum morbo liberareris Quid ergo? Non et nunc idem facies? Omnia inpedimenta dimitte et vaca bonae menti: nemo ad illam pervenit occupatus. Exercet philosophia regnum suum; dat tempus, non accipit. Non est res subsiciva, ordinaria est; domina est, adesse iubet.

Alexander, to a certain state that promised him part of its fields and half of all its goods, said: "I came into Asia with this purpose – not to take what you might give, but that you should keep what I might leave." Philosophy says the same to all our affairs: "I will not take the time that is left over for you; rather, you shall have what I myself reject."

Alexander cuidam civitati partem agrorum et dimidium rerum omnium promittenti Eo, inquit, proposito in Asiam veni, ut non id acciperem, quod dedissetis. sed ut id haberetis, quod reliquissem. Idem philosophia rebus omnibus, Non sum hoc tempus acceptura, quod vobis superfuerit, sed id vos habebitis, quod ipsa reiecero.

Turn your whole mind here, sit beside her, court her: a vast interval will open between you and the rest. You will far outstrip all mortals, and the gods will not far outstrip you. You ask what will lie between you and them? They will last longer. But, by Hercules, it is the mark of a great craftsman to have shut the whole into a small space. To the wise man his own span lies as open as all time to a god. There is something in which the wise man outdoes the god: the god is free of fear by nature’s gift, the wise man by his own.

Totam huc converte mentem, huic adside, hanc cole; ingens intervallum inter te et ceteros fiet. Omnes mortales multo antecedes, non multo te di antecedent. Quaeris, quid inter te et illos interfuturum sit? Diutius erunt. At mehercules magni artificis est clusisse totum in exiguo. Tantum sapienti sua, quantum deo omnis aetas patet. Est aliquid, quo sapiens antecedat deum: ille naturae beneficio non timet, suo sapiens.

Here is a great thing: to have the frailty of a man, the security of a god. Incredible is the power of philosophy to beat back every blow of chance. No weapon lodges in her body; she is fortified, solid. Some assaults she wears down and parries like light darts in the loose fold of her robe; others she dashes away and flings back upon the very man who hurled them. Farewell.

Ecce res magna, habere inbecillitatem hominis, securitatem dei Incredibilis philosophiae vis est ad omnem fortuitam vim retundendam. Nullum telum in corpore eius sedet; munita est, solida. Quaedam defetigat et velut levia tela laxo sinu eludit, quaedam discutit et in eum usque, qui miserat, respuit. Vale.

Poor health had granted me a long furlough; suddenly it fell upon me. "Of what kind?" you ask. You ask with perfect right – so completely is no kind unknown to me. To one disease, though, I am, so to speak, assigned, which why I should call by its Greek name I do not know; for it can fittingly enough be called "shortness of breath." Its onset is very brief, like a squall; within an hour or so it usually ends. For who breathes his last for long?

Longum mihi commeatum dederat mala valitudo; repente me invasit. Quo genere? inquis. Prorsus merito interrogas; adeo nullum mihi ignotum est. Uni tamen morbo quasi adsignatus sum, quem quare Graeco nomine appellem nescio; satis enim apte dici suspirium potest. Brevis autem valde et procellae similis est impetus; intra horam fere desinit. Quis enim diu exspirat?

Every bodily trouble and danger has passed through me; none seems to me more burdensome. Why not? For anything else is merely to be ill; this is to breathe out one’s life. And so the physicians call it "the rehearsal of death." For one day that breath will do what it has so often tried.

Omnia corporis aut incommoda aut pericula per me transierunt; nullum mihi videtur molestius. Quidni? Aliud enim quicquid est, aegrotare est, hoc animam egerere. Itaque medici hanc meditationem mortis vocant. Faciet enim aliquando spiritus ille, quod saepe conatus est.

Do you think I write this to you cheerfully because I escaped? I would be as absurd to take joy in this ending as in good health, as that man – whoever he is – who thinks he has won because he has put off his court-date. I, however, even in the very choking, did not cease to find rest in glad and brave thoughts.

Hilarem me putas haec tibi scribere, quia effugi? Tam ridicule facio, si hoc fine quasi bona valitudine delector, quam ille, quisquis vicisse se putat, cum vadimonium distulit. Ego vero et in ipsa suffocatione non desii cogitationibus laetis ac fortibus adquiescere.

"What is this?" I say. "Does death test me so often?" Let it; I have tested it long since. "When?" you ask. Before I was born. Death is not to be; what that is like, I already know. What will be after me is what was before me. If there is any torment in this, there must have been some before too, before we came forth into the light; yet we felt no distress then.

Quid hoc est? inquam. Tam saepe mors experitur me? Faciat; ego illam diu expertus sum. Quando? inquis. Antequam nascerer. Mors est non esse; id quale sit, iam scio. Hoc erit post me, quod ante me fuit. Si quid in hac re tormenti est, necesse est et fuisse, antequam prodiremus in lucem; atqui nullam sensimus tunc vexationem.

I ask you, would you not call a man most foolish who thought a lamp was worse off when it has been put out than before it was lit? We too are both put out and lit; in that middle time we suffer something, but on either side of it is deep security. For in this, my Lucilius – unless I am mistaken – we go wrong: we judge that death follows, when it has both gone before and is to follow. Whatever was before us is death. For what does it matter whether you do not begin or you leave off, when the result of both is the same – not to be?

Rogo, non stultissimum dicas, si quis existimet lucernae peius esse, cum extincta est, quam antequam accenditur? Nos quoque et extinguimur et accendimur; medio illo tempore aliquid patimur, utrimque vero alta securitas est. In hoc enim, mi Lucili, nisi fallor, erramus, quod mortem iudicamus sequi, cum illa et praecesserit et secutura sit. Quicquid ante nos fuit, mors est. Quid enim refert, non incipias an desinas, cum utriusque rei hic sit effectus, non esse?

With these exhortations and the like – silent ones, of course, for there was no room for words – I did not cease to address myself. Then little by little that gasping, which had already begun to be mere panting, made longer intervals, slowed, and subsided. And even now, though it has stopped, my breath does not flow from nature; I feel a certain catching and delay in it. Let it be as it will, so long as I do not sigh from the soul.

His et eiusmodi exhortationibus, tacitis scilicet, nam verbis locus non erat, adloqui me non desii. Deinde paulatim suspirium illud, quod esse iam anhelitus coeperat, intervalla maiora fecit et retardatum est ac remansit. Nec adhuc, quamvis desierit, ex natura fluit spiritus; sentio haesitationem quandam eius et moram. Quomodo volet, dummodo non ex animo suspirem.

Take this pledge of me about myself: I will not tremble at the last; I am already prepared, I plan nothing about the whole day. Praise and imitate the man whom it does not irk to die, though it pleases him to live. For what virtue is there in going out when you are thrown out? And yet there is virtue even here: I am thrown out, indeed, but as though I went out of my own accord. And for that reason the wise man is never thrown out, because to be thrown out is to be driven from a place you leave unwilling; the wise man does nothing unwilling, he escapes necessity because he wills what it is going to compel. Farewell.

Hoc tibi de me recipe; non trepidabo ad extrema, iam praeparatus sum, nihil cogito de die toto. Illum tu lauda et imitare, quem non piget mori, cum iuvet vivere. Quae est enim virtus cum eiciaris exire? Tamen est et hic virtus; eicior quidem, sed tanquam exeam. Et ideo numquam eicitur sapiens, quia eici est inde expelli, unde invitus recedas; nihil invitus facit sapiens, necessitatem effugit, quia vult quod coactura est. Vale.

I have just come from a ride in the litter, no less tired than if I had walked as far as I sat. For to be carried a long while is itself a labor – and perhaps the greater for being against nature, which gave us feet that we might walk by our own power, eyes that we might see by our own. Soft living has decreed us this weakness, and what we long refused to do, we have lost the power to do.

A gestatione cum maxime venio non minus fatigatus, quam si tantum ambulassem, quantum sedi. Labor est enim et diu ferri, ac nescio an eo maior, quia contra naturam est, quae pedes dedit, ut per nos ambularemus, oculos, ut per nos videremus. Debilitatem nobis indixere deliciae, et quod diu noluimus, posse desîmus.

For me, though, it was needful to shake up the body, so that, if bile had settled in my throat, it might be dispersed, or, if my very breath was for some reason thicker, the jolting might thin it – which I felt did me good. So I kept on riding the longer, the shore itself inviting me, where it curves between Cumae and the villa of Servilius Vatia, shut in like a narrow passage with the sea on one side and the lake on the other. It was firm underfoot from the recent storm; for the wave, as you know, when frequent and driven, levels the sand, while a longer calm loosens it, once the moisture that bound the grains has drained away.

Mihi tamen necessarium erat concutere corpus, ut sive bilis insederat faucibus, discuteretur, sive ipse ex aliqua causa spiritus densior erat, extenuaret illum iactatio, quam profuisse mihi sensi. Ideo diutius vehi perseveravi invitante ipso litore, quod inter Cumas et Servili Vatiae villam curvatur et hinc mari, illinc lacu velut angustum iter cluditur. Erat enim a recenti tempestate spissum. Fluctus autem illud, ut scis, frequens et concitatus exaequat, longior tranquillitas solvit, cum harenis, quae umore alligantur, sucus abscessit.

From my habit, though, I began to look around whether I might find something there that could do me good, and I turned my eyes to the villa that once belonged to Vatia. In it that rich ex-praetor, known for nothing but his leisure, grew old, and for this one thing was reckoned happy. For whenever the friendship of Asinius Gallus, whenever the hatred – and then the love – of Sejanus had sunk men (for it was as dangerous to have offended him as to have loved him), people would cry out: "O Vatia, you alone know how to live!"

Ex consuetudine tamen mea circumspicere coepi, an aliquid illic invenirem, quod milli mihi posset bono esse, et derexi oculos in villam, quae aliquando Vatiae fuit. In hac ille praetorius dives, nulla alia re quam otio notus, consenuit et ob hoc unum felix habebatur. Nam quotiens aliquos amicitiae Asinii Galli, quotiens Seiani odium, deinde amor merserat, aeque enim offendisse illum quam amasse periculosum fuit, exclamabant homines: O Vatia, solus scis vivere.

But what he knew was how to hide, not how to live. And it makes a great difference whether your life is leisured or idle. While Vatia lived, I never passed this villa otherwise than to say: "Here lies Vatia." But so sacred and venerable a thing, my Lucilius, is philosophy, that even what merely resembles it pleases by the very deceit. For the crowd thinks the leisured man withdrawn and untroubled and content with himself, living for himself – none of which can fall to anyone but the wise man.

At ille latere sciebat, non vivere. Multum autem interest, utrum vita tua otiosa sit an ignava. Numquam aliter hanc villam Vatia vivo praeteribam, quam ut dicerem: Vatia hic situs est. Sed adeo, mi Lucili, philosophia sacrum quiddam est et venerabile, ut etiam, si quid illi simile est, mendacio placeat. Otiosum enim hominem seductum existimat vulgus et securum et se contentum, sibi viventem, quorum nihil ulli contingere nisi sapienti potest.

Does that anxious man know how to live for himself? Does he even – what comes first – know how to live at all? For the man who flees affairs and men, whom the unhappiness of his own desires has banished, who could not bear to see others happier, who has hidden himself out of fear like some timid and sluggish beast: he does not live for himself, but, what is most shameful, for his belly, his sleep, his lust. It does not follow that a man lives for himself because he lives for no one. And yet constancy and perseverance in one’s purpose are so great a thing that even stubborn idleness has its authority.

Ille sollicitus scit sibi vivere? Ille enim, quod est primum, scit vivere? Nam qui res et homines fugit, quem cupiditatum suarum infelicitas relegavit, qui alios feliciores videre non potuit, qui velut timidum atque iners animal metu oblituit, ille sibi non vivit, sed, quod est turpissimum, ventri, somno, libidini. Non continuo sibi vivit, qui nemini. Adeo tamen magna res est constantia et in proposito suo perseverantia, ut habeat auctoritatem inertia quoque pertinax.

Of the villa itself I can write you nothing certain. For I know only its front, and the parts it displays even to passers-by. There are two grottoes, of great workmanship, each the equal of a spacious hall, made by hand: one takes no sun, the other holds it right up to sunset. A stream, received both from the sea and from the Acherusian lake, runs through the midst of a plane-grove and divides it like a channel, enough to rear fish even if it is constantly drawn upon. But when the sea is open they spare it; when a storm has given the fishermen a holiday, the hand reaches for what is ready.

De ipsa villa nihil tibi possum certi scribere. Frontem enim eius tantum novi et exposita, quae ostendit etiam transeuntibus. Speluncae sunt duae magni operis, cuivis laxo atrio pares, manu factae, quarum altera solem non recipit, altera usque in occidentem tenet. Platanona medius rivus et a mari et ab Acherusio lacu receptus euripi modo dividit, alendis piscibus, etiam si adsidue exhauriatur, sufficiens. Sed illi, cum mare patet, parcitur; cum tempestas piscatoribus dedit ferias, manus ad parata porrigitur.

This, though, is the villa’s greatest convenience: that it has Baiae across the wall; it is free of that place’s discomforts and enjoys its pleasures. These merits of it I myself know; I believe it habitable the whole year round. For it faces the west wind and so catches it that it denies it to Baiae. Vatia seems to have chosen not foolishly this spot, into which to retire his leisure, by now lazy and elderly.

Hoc tamen est commodissimum in villa, quod Baias trans parietem habet; incommodis illarum caret, voluptatibus fruitur. Has laudes eius ipse novi; esse illam totius anni credo. Occurrit enim favonio et illum adeo excipit, ut Bais neget. Non stulte videtur elegisse hunc locum Vatia, in quem otium suum pigrum iam et senile conferret.

But the place contributes little to tranquillity; it is the mind that must commend all things to itself. I have seen men gloomy in a cheerful and pleasant villa, I have seen men in the midst of solitude looking busy. So there is no reason to think yourself ill-composed merely because you are not in Campania. And why are you not? Send your thoughts even this far.

Sed non multum ad tranquillitatem locus confert; animus est, qui sibi commendet omnia. Vidi ego in villa hilari et amoena maestos, vidi in media solitudine occupatis similes. Quare non est quod existimes ideo parum bene conpositum esse te, quod in Campania non es. Quare autem non es? Huc usque cogitationes tuas mitte.

We may keep company with absent friends – and indeed as often as we wish, as long as we wish. We enjoy this pleasure, the greatest of all, the more while we are away. For presence makes us pampered, and because we sometimes talk together, walk, sit down, once we are parted we think nothing of those we just now saw.

Conversari cum amicis absentibus licet, et quidem quotiens velis, quamdiu velis. Magis hac voluptate, quae maxima est, fruimur, dum absumus. Praesentia enim nos delicatos facit, et quia aliquando una loquimur, ambulamus, consedimus, cum diducti sumus, nihil de is, quos modo vidimus, cogitamus.

And for that reason we ought to bear absence with an even mind, since no one is not much absent even from those present. Set down here, first, the nights spent apart, then the occupations that differ for each, then private studies, trips out of town; you will see that travel takes little from us.

Et ideo aequo animo ferre debemus absentiam, quia nemo non multum etiam praesentibus abest. Pone hic primum noctes separatas, deinde occupationes utrique diversas, deinde studia secreta, suburbanas profectiones; videbis non multum esse, quod nobis peregrinatio eripiat.

A friend must be possessed in the mind; and there he is never absent. He sees whomever he wishes, daily. So study with me, dine with me, walk with me. We were living in a narrow space if anything were shut off from our thoughts. I see you, my Lucilius; at this very moment I hear you. I am so much with you that I am tempted to begin writing you not letters but little notes. Farewell.

Amicus animo possidendus est; hic autem numquam abest. Quemcumque vult, cotidie videt. Itaque mecum stude, mecum cena, mecum ambula. In angusto vivebamus, si quicquam esset cogitationibus clusum. Video te, mi Lucili; cum maxime audio. Adeo tecum sum, ut dubitem, an incipiam non epistulas, sed codicellos tibi scribere. Vale.

Let me die if silence is as necessary as it seems to a man shut away in his studies. Look – from every side a varied din rings around me. I live right over a bath-house. Now picture to yourself every kind of voice that can drive the ears to hatred: when the stronger fellows exercise and throw their lead-weighted hands about, when they either strain or imitate the straining, I hear their groans, and whenever they let out their held breath, the whistlings and the bitterest gasps; when I come upon some lazy fellow content with the common man’s rub-down, I hear the smack of a hand striking his shoulders, changing its note according as it lands flat or cupped. But if a ball-player turns up and begins to count the throws, it is all over.

Peream, si est tam necessarium quam videtur silentium in studia seposito. Ecce undique me varius clamor circumsonat. Supra ipsum balneum habito. Propone nunc tibi omnia genera vocum, quae in odium possunt aures adducere: cum fortiores exercentur et manus plumbo graves iactant, cum aut laborant aut laborantem imitantur, gemitus audio, quotiens retentum spiritum remiserunt, sibilos et acerbissimas respirationes; cum in aliquem inertem et hac plebeia unctione contentum incidi, audio crepitum inlisae manus umeris, quae prout plana pervenit aut concava, ita sonum mutat. Si vero pilicrepus supervenit et numerare coepit pilas, actum est.

Add now the brawler, and the thief caught in the act, and the man who likes the sound of his own voice in the bath. Add now those who leap into the pool with a huge splash of struck water. Besides these, whose voices are at least straight, picture the armpit-plucker forever forcing out his thin, shrill cry – to be the more noticeable – and never silent except while he plucks an armpit and makes another man cry out in his place. Then the various calls of the drink-seller, and the sausage-man and the pastry-cook and all the cookshop-hawkers, each selling his wares with his own marked sing-song.

Adice nunc scordalum et furem deprensum et illum, cui vox sua in balineo placet. Adice nunc eos, qui in piscinam cum ingenti inpulsae aquae sono saliunt. Praeter istos, quorum, si nihil aliud, rectae voces sunt, alipilum cogita tenuem et stridulam vocem, quo sit notabilior, subinde exprimentem nec umquam tacentem, nisi dum vellit alas et alium pro se clamare cogit. Iam libari varias exclamationes et botularium et crustularium et omnes popinarum institores mercem sua quadam et insignita modulatione vendentis.

"O you man of iron," you say, "or deaf, whose mind holds firm amid so many cries, so varied, so jarring, when the unceasing round of morning-calls drove our Chrysippus to his death!" But, by Hercules, I no more mind that uproar than a wave or a fall of water – though I have heard that for one nation this was the single reason for moving their city: that they could not bear the roar of the falling Nile.

O te, inquis, ferreum aut surdum, cui mens inter tot clamores tam varios, tam dissonos constat, cum Chrysippum nostrum adsidua salutatio perducat ad mortem. At mehercules ego istum fremitum non magis curo quam fluctum aut deiectum aquae, quamvis audiam cuidam genti hanc unam fuisse causam urbem suam transferendi, quod fragorem Nili cadentis ferre non potuit.

A voice, it seems to me, distracts more than a noise. For a voice draws the mind, while a noise only fills and batters the ears. Among the things that clatter around me without distracting me I count the carriages racing past, the carpenter who lodges in my building, the saw-man next door, or that fellow who, at the Meta Sudans, tries out his trumpets and pipes – and does not sing but bawls.

Magis mihi videtur vox avocare quam crepitus. Illa enim animum adducit, hic tantum aures implet ac verberat. In his, quae me sine avocatione circumstrepunt, essedas transcurrentes pono et fabrum inquilinum et serrarium vicinum, aut hunc, qui ad Metam Sudantem tubulas experitur et tibias, nec cantat, sed exclamat.

Even now a sound that breaks off from time to time is more troublesome to me than one that runs on. But by now I have so hardened myself to all this that I could even bear a boatswain marking time for his rowers in the harshest voice. For I force my mind to be intent on itself and not be called off to things outside; let everything resound without, so long as there is no tumult within, so long as desire and fear are not quarreling between themselves, so long as greed and luxury are not at odds, neither harassing the other. For what good is the silence of a whole region, if the passions are in an uproar?

Etiamnunc molestior est mihi sonus, qui intermittitur subinde quam qui continuatur. Sed iam me sic ad omnia ista duravi, ut audire vel pausarium possim voce acerbissima remigibus modos dantem. Animum enim cogo sibi intentum esse nec avocari ad externa; omnia licet foris resonent, dum intus nihil tumultus sit, dum inter se non rixentur cupiditas et timor, dum avaritia luxuriaque non dissideant nec altera alteram vexet. Nam quid prodest totius regionis silentium, si adfectus fremunt?

All things lay still, settled in the calm of night.

Omnia noctis erant placida composta quiete.

Look at the man who seeks sleep in the silence of a roomy house, for whose ears, that no sound may stir them, the whole crowd of slaves has fallen quiet, and the foot of any who approach is set down hushed: he turns this way and that, of course, snatching at a light sleep among his ailments.

Aspice illum, cui somnus laxae domus silentio quaeritur, cuius aures ne quis agitet sonus, omnis servorum turba conticuit et suspensum accedentium propius vestigium ponitur; huc nempe versatur atque illuc, somnum inter aegritudines levem captans.

What he does not hear, he complains of having heard. What do you think is the cause? His own mind clamors at him. This must be calmed, its mutiny put down – and you have no reason to think it calm because the body lies still. Sometimes rest is restless. And so we must be roused to the doing of things and kept busy with the practice of the good arts, whenever idleness, impatient of itself, treats us ill.

Quae non audit, audisse se queritur. Quid in causa putas esse? Animus illi obstrepit. Hic placandus est, huius conpescenda seditio est, quem non est quod existimes placidum, si iacet corpus. Interdum quies inquieta est. Et ideo ad rerum actus excitandi ac tractatione bonarum artium occupandi sumus, quotiens nos male habet inertia sui inpatiens.

Great generals, when they see the soldier obeying badly, hold him down with some labor and keep him busy with campaigns; men with work in hand are never free to run wild, and nothing is so sure as that the vices of leisure are dispersed by business. Often we seem to have withdrawn out of weariness of public affairs and regret of an unlucky and thankless post, yet in that hiding-place, into which fear and exhaustion threw us, ambition sometimes breaks out afresh. For it did not cease because it was cut out, but because it was tired – or even angered at things yielding too little to it.

Magni imperatores, cum male parere militem vident, aliquo labore conpescunt et expeditionibus detinent; numquam vacat lascivire districtis nihilque tam certum est quam otii vitia negotio discuti. Saepe videmur taedio rerum civilium et infelicis atque ingratae stationis paenitentia secessisse, tamen in illa latebra, in quam nos timor ac lassitudo coniecit, interdum recrudescit ambitio. Non enim excisa desit, sed fatigata aut etiam obirata rebus parum sibi cedentibus.

The same I say of luxury, which seems sometimes to have given way, then troubles those who have professed frugality, and in the midst of thrift seeks out pleasures not condemned but only left behind – and indeed the more violently, the more secretly. For all vices are milder in the open; diseases too then incline toward health when they break out from hiding and put forth their force. So you may know that greed too, and ambition, and the other ills of the human mind, are most ruinous when they subside under a feigned health.

Idem de luxuria dico, quae videtur aliquando cessisse, deinde frugalitatem professos sollicitat atque in media parsimonia voluptates non damnatus, sed relictas petit, et quidem eo vehementius, quo occultius. Omnia enim vitia in aperto leniora sunt; morbi quoque tunc ad sanitatem inclinant, cum ex abdito erumpunt ac vim suam proferunt. Et avaritiam itaque et ambitionem et cetera mala mentis humanae tunc perniciosissima scias esse, cum simulata sanitate subsidunt.

We seem to be at leisure, and we are not. For if we are so in good faith, if we have sounded the retreat, if we despise the showy things, as I was saying a little while ago, no thing will call us off, no chorus of men and birds will interrupt our thoughts, now solid and sure.

Otiosi videmur, et non sumus. Nam si bona fide sumus, si receptui cecinimus, si speciosa contemnimus, ut paulo ante dicebam, nulla res nos avocabit, nullus hominum aviumque concentus interrumpet cogitationes bonas, solidasque iam et certas.

And I, whom of late no hurled weapons could move, nor the Greeks massed from the facing line, now every breeze alarms, every sound starts me up, in dread alike for my companion and my burden.

Et me, quem dudum non ulla iniecta movebant Tela neque adverso glomerati ex agmine Grai, Nunc omnes terrent aurae, sonus excitat omnis Suspensum et pariter comitique onerique timentem.

The former is the wise man, whom no quivering weapons, no arms of a dense column clashing together, no crash of a battered city alarms. The latter is the ignorant man: he fears for his own affairs, taking fright at every clatter, whom any single voice, taken for an uproar, casts down, whom the slightest movements unnerve; his baggage makes him timid.

Prior ille sapiens est, quem non tela vibrantia, non arietata inter se arma agminis densi, non urbis inpulsae fragor territat. Hic alter inperitus est, rebus suis timet ad omnem crepitum expavescens, quem una quaelibet vox pro fremitu accepta deicit, quem motus levissimi exanimant; timidum illum sarcinae faciunt.

Whichever of those happy men you choose – men dragging much, carrying much – you will see him "in dread alike for companion and for burden." Know, then, that you are composed when no cry reaches you, when no voice shakes you out of yourself, neither if it coaxes nor if it threatens, nor if it clatters emptily around you with hollow sound.

Quemcumque ex istis felicibus elegeris, multa trahentibus, multa portantibus, videbis illum comitique onerique timentem. Tunc ergo te scito esse conpositum, cum ad te nullus clamor pertinebit, cum te nulla vox tibi excutiet, non si blandietur, non si minabitur, non si inani sono vana circumstrepet.

What then? Is it not sometimes more convenient to be free of the racket too? I admit it. So I shall move from this place. I only wanted to test and train myself. What need is there to be tormented any longer, when Ulysses found so easy a remedy for his comrades even against the Sirens? Farewell.

Quid ergo? Non aliquando commodius est et carere convicio? Fateor. Itaque ego ex hoc loco migrabo. Experiri et exercere me volui. Quid necesse est diutius torqueri, cum tam facile remedium Vlixes sociis etiam adversus Sirenas invenerit? Vale.

When I had to make my way back from Baiae to Naples, I readily believed there was a storm, so as not to try the ship a second time; but there was so much mud the whole way that I might seem to have sailed all the same. That day I had to endure the athlete’s whole lot: after the wrestling-oil, the gripping-dust took us – in the Naples tunnel.

Cum a Bais deberem Neapolim repetere, facile credidi tempestatem esse, ne iterum navem experirer; et tantum luti tota via fuit, ut possim videri nihilominus navigasse. Totum athletarum fatum mihi illo die perpetiendum fuit; a ceromate nos haphe excepit in crypta Neapolitana.

Nothing is longer than that prison, nothing darker than those torches, which let us see not through the darkness, but only the darkness itself. Besides, even if the place had light, the dust would take it away – a heavy and troublesome thing even in the open; how much more there, where it rolls back upon itself and, shut in without any vent, falls back on the very men who stirred it up? We endured two discomforts at once, contrary to each other: on the same road, on the same day, we labored under both mud and dust.

Nihil illo carcere longius, nihil illis facibus obscurius, quae nobis praestant non ut per tenebras videamus, sed ut ipsas. Ceterum etiam si locus haberet lucem, pulvis auferret, in aperto quoque res gravis et molesta; quid illic, ubi in se volutatur et, cum sine ullo spiramento sit inclusus, in ipsos, a quibus excitatus est, recidit? Duo incommoda inter se contraria simul pertulimus: eadem via, eodem die et luto et pulvere laboravimus.

Yet that darkness gave me something to think on; I felt a certain shock of the mind and, without fear, a change that the strangeness of an unaccustomed thing, together with its foulness, had wrought. I am not now speaking to you about myself, who am far from a tolerable man, let alone a perfect one, but about the man over whom fortune has lost her rights. His mind too will be struck, his color will change.

Aliquid tamen mihi illa obscuritas, quod cogitarem, dedit; sensi quendam ictum animi et sine metu mutationem, quam insolitae rei novitas simul ac foeditas fecerat. Non de me nunc tecum loquor, qui multum ab homine tolerabili, nedum a perfecto absum, sed de illo, in quem fortuna ius perdidit. Huius quoque ferietur animus, mutabitur color.

For there are certain things, my Lucilius, that no virtue can escape; nature reminds it of its own mortality. And so it will draw the face down at sad sights, and shudder at sudden ones, and grow dizzy if, set on the brink of a vast height, it looks down. This is not fear, but a natural affection that reason cannot storm.

Quaedam enim, mi Lucili, nulla effugere virtus potest; admonet illam natura mortalitatis suae. Itaque et vultum adducet ad tristia et inhorrescet ad subita et caligabit, si vastam altitudinem in crepidine eius constitutus despexerit; non est hoc timor, sed naturalis adfectio inexpugnabilis rationi.

And so certain brave men, most ready to shed their own blood, cannot look upon another’s. Some collapse and faint at the handling and inspection of a fresh wound, others at that of an old and festering one. Others take a sword-stroke more easily than they watch it.

Itaque fortes quidam et paratissimi fundere suum sanguinem alienum videre non possunt. Quidam ad vulneris novi, quidam ad veteris et purulenti tractationem inspectionemque succidunt ac linquuntur animo. Alii gladium facilius recipiunt quam vident.

So I felt, as I said, not indeed a disturbance, but a change. Again, at the first sight of the light restored, my briskness came back, unthought-of and unbidden. Then I began to talk with myself how foolishly we fear some things more or less than others, when the end of all is the same. For what does it matter whether a watch-tower falls on a man or a mountain? You will find no difference. Yet there will be those who fear the one collapse more, though both are equally deadly; so it is not the effect but the cause that fear regards.

Sensi ergo, ut dicebam, quandam non quidem perturbationem, sed mutationem. Rursus ad primum conspectum redditae lucis alacritas rediit incogitata et iniussa. Illud deinde mecum loqui coepi, quam inepte quaedam magis aut minus timeremus, cum omnium idem finis esset. Quid enim interest, utrum supra aliquem vigilarium ruat an mons? Nihil invenies. Erunt tamen, qui hanc ruinam magis timeant, quamvis utraque mortifera aeque sit; adeo non effectus, sed efficientia timor spectat.

Now do you think I am speaking of the Stoics, who hold that the soul of a man crushed by a great weight cannot last but is scattered at once, because it had no free way out? I, however, do not say this; those who say it seem to me to err.

Nunc me putas de Stoicis dicere, qui existimant animam hominis magno pondere extriti permanere non posse et statim spargi, quia non fuerit illi exitus liber? Ego vero non facio; qui hoc dicunt, videntur mihi errare.

Just as a flame cannot be pressed down – for it slips away around the thing that bears on it; just as the air is not harmed by lash and blow, nor even cut, but pours back around what it gave way to: so the soul, which is made of the finest stuff, cannot be seized or struck dead within the body, but by the benefit of its own subtlety bursts out through the very things that press it. As the lightning, even when it has struck and flashed most widely, has its return through a tiny opening, so the soul, finer still than fire, has its escape through the whole body.

Quemadmodum flamma non potest obprimi, nam circa id effugit, quo urgetur; quemadmodum aer verbere atque ictu non laeditur, ne scinditur quidem, sed circa id, cui cessit, refunditur; sic animus, qui ex tenuissimo constat, deprehendi non potest nec intra corpus effligi, sed beneficio subtilitatis suae per ipsa, quibus premitur, erumpit. Quomodo fulmini, etiam cum latissime percussit ac fulsit, per exiguum foramen est reditus, sic animo, qui adhuc tenuior est igne, per omne corpus fuga est.

And so the question about it is whether it can be immortal. This, at least, hold for certain: if it survives the body, it cannot be destroyed in any way, for the very reason that it does not perish – since no immortality admits an exception, and nothing is harmful to the eternal. Farewell.

Itaque de illo quaerendum est, an possit immortalis esse. Hoc quidem certum habe: si superstes est corpori, praeteri illum nullo genere posse, propter quod non perit, quoniam nulla immortalitas cum exceptione est nec quicquam noxium aeterno est. Vale.

How great is our poverty of words – or rather our destitution – I have never understood more than today. A thousand things came up, as we happened to be talking of Plato, that called for names and had none; and certain others that, though they had once had names, had lost them through our fastidiousness. But who can endure fastidiousness in the midst of want?

Quanta verborum nobis paupertas, immo egestas sit, numquam magis quam hodierno die intellexi. Mille res inciderunt, cum forte de Platone loqueremur, quae nomina desiderarent nec haberent, quaedam vero, quae cum habuissent, fastidio nostro perdidissent. Quis autem ferat in egestate fastidium?

By the grove of Silarus and green with holm-oaks flies in swarms over Alburnus an insect the Romans name asilus, which the Greeks turned and call oestrus – harsh, with a bitter buzz, by which, terrified, through the woods the whole herds scatter.

Est lucum Silari iuxta ilicibusque virentem Plurimus Alburnum volitans, cui nomen asilo Romanum est, oestrum Grai vertere vocantes, Asper, acerba sonans, quo tota exterrita silvis Diffugiunt armenta.

That huge men, born in different parts of the world, had clashed together and were fighting it out with the sword.

Ingentis genitos diversis partibus orbis Inter se coiisse viros et cernere ferro.

For the rest – where I shall command – let the band carry arms at my side.

Cetera, qua iusso, mecum manus inferat arma.

I am not now doing this with such care to show how much time I wasted with the grammarian, but that you may understand from it how many words the disuse of Ennius and Accius has buried, when even in this author, who is sifted daily, some have been stolen from us.

Non id ago nunc hac diligentia, ut ostendam, quantum tempus apud grammaticum perdiderim, sed ut ex hoc intellegas, quantum apud Ennium et Accium verborum situs occupaverit, cum apud hunc quoque, qui cotidie excutitur, aliqua nobis subducta sint.

"What does all this preparation mean?" you say. "What is it aiming at?" I will not hide it from you: I want, if it can be done, to say essentia to your favorable ears; if not, I will say it even to angry ones. I have Cicero as the author of this word – a wealthy authority, I think. If you want a more recent one, Fabianus, eloquent and elegant, of a style polished even to our fastidious taste. For what is to be done, my Lucilius? How is ousia to be said – a necessary thing, the nature that holds the foundation of all things? So I ask you to permit me to use this word. Nonetheless I will take pains to exercise the right you grant most sparingly; perhaps I shall be content merely that it be allowed me.

Quid sibi, inquis, ista praeparatio vult? Quo spectat? Non celabo te; cupio, si fieri potest, propitiis auribus tuis essentiam dicere; si minus, dicam et iratis. Ciceronem auctorem huius verbi habeo, puto locupletem. Si recentiorem quaeris, Fabianum, disertum et elegantem, orationis etiam ad nostrum fastidium nitidae. Quid enim fiet, mi Lucili? Quomodo dicetur οὐσία res necessaria, natura continens fundamentum omnium? Rogo itaque permittas mihi hoc verbo uti. Nihilominus dabo operam, ut ius a te datum parcissime exerceam; fortasse contentus ero mihi licere.

What good will your indulgence do, when, look, there is that which I can in no way express in Latin – the very thing for which I reproached our tongue? You will condemn the Roman narrowness still more when you learn that it is a single syllable I cannot change. What is it, you ask? To on. I seem to you of dull wit: it lies open before us, it could be rendered so as to say "that which is." But I see a great difference: I am forced to put a verb in place of a noun.

Quid proderit facilitas tua, cum ecce id nullo modo Latine exprimere possim, propter quod linguae nostrae convicium feci? Magis damnabis angustias Romanas, si scieris unam syllabam esse, quam mutare non possum. Quae sit haec, quaeris? Τὸ ὄν. Duri tibi videor ingenii; in medio positum, posse sic transferri, ut dicam quod est. Sed multum interesse video; cogor verbum pro vocabulo ponere.

But if it must be so, I will put "that which is." Our friend, a most learned man, was saying today that this is said by Plato in six ways. I will set them all out for you, if I first point out that there is a thing called a genus, and a thing called a species. Now, however, we are looking for that first genus from which the other species hang, from which all division is born, in which the whole is comprehended. It will be found if we begin to read the particulars backward; for thus we shall be led to the first.

Sed si ita necesse est, ponam quod est. Sex modis hoc a Platone dici amicus noster, homo eruditissimus, hodierno die dicebat. Omnes tibi exponam, si ante indicavero esse aliquid genus, esse et speciem. Nunc autem primum illud genus quaerimus, ex quo ceterae species suspensae sunt, a quo nascitur omnis divisio, quo universa conprensa sunt. Invenietur autem, si coeperimus singula retro legere; sic enim perducemur ad primum.

Man is a species, as Aristotle says; horse is a species; dog is a species; therefore some common bond must be sought for all these, which embraces them and holds them under itself. What is this? Animal. So there has begun to be a genus of all these I just named – man, horse, dog: animal.

Homo species est, ut Aristoteles ait; equus species est; canis species est; ergo commune aliquod quaerendum est his omnibus vinculum, quod illa conplectatur et sub se habeat. Hoc quid est? Animal. Ergo genus esse coepit horum omnium, quae modo rettuli, hominis, equi, canis, animal.

But some things have soul and are not animals. For it is agreed that soul is in plants and shrubs too. And so we say that they both live and die. Therefore living things will hold the higher place, since both animals are in this class and growing things. But some things lack soul, such as stones. So there will be something older than living things, namely body. This I will divide by saying: all bodies are either living or inanimate.

Sed quaedam animam habent nec sunt animalia. Placet enim satis et arbustis animam inesse. Itaque et vivere illa et mori dicimus. Ergo animantia superiorem tenebunt locum, quia et animalia in hac forma sunt et sata. Sed quaedam anima carent, ut saxa. Itaque erit aliquid animantibus antiquius, corpus scilicet. Hoc sic dividam, ut dicam corpora omnia aut animantia esse aut inanima.

Even now there is something higher than body. For we say some things are corporeal, some incorporeal. What then will that be from which these are deduced? That to which we just now gave a name too little proper: "that which is." For thus it will be cut into species, so that we may say: that which is, is either corporeal or incorporeal.

Etiamnunc est aliquid superius quam corpus. Dicimus enim quaedam corporalia esse, quaedam incorporalia. Quid ergo erit, ex quo haec deducantur? Illud, cui nomen modo parum proprium inposuimus, quod est. Sic enim in species secabitur, ut dicamus: quod est aut corporale est aut incorporale.

This, then, is the first and oldest genus and, so to speak, the general one. The rest are genera indeed, but special ones – as man is a genus. For it has within it the species of nations: Greeks, Romans, Parthians; of colors: white, black, tawny; it has individuals: Cato, Cicero, Lucretius. So insofar as it contains many, it falls under genus; insofar as it is under another, under species. That genus which is general has nothing above it; it is the beginning of things; all things are under it.

Hoc ergo est genus primum et antiquissimum et, ut ita dicam, generale. Cetera genera quidem sunt, sed specialia. Tamquam homo genus est. Habet enim in se nationum species: Graecos, Romanos, Parthos. Colorum: albos, nigros, flavos. Habet singulos: Catonem, Ciceronem, Lucretium. Ita qua multa continet, in genus cadit; qua sub alio est, in speciem. Illud genus quod est generale, supra se nihil habet; initium rerum est; omnia sub illo sunt.

The Stoics want to set above this yet another, more primary genus; of which I will speak at once, once I have first shown that the genus I have spoken of is rightly placed first, since it holds all things.

Stoici volunt superponere huic etiamnunc aliud genus magis principale; de quo statim dicam, si prius illud genus, de quo locutus sum, merito primum poni docuero, cum sit rerum omnium capax.

"That which is" I divide into these species, so that there are corporeal or incorporeal things. There is no third. Body – how do I divide it? So as to say: they are either living or inanimate. Again, living things – how do I divide them? So as to say: some have mind, some only soul. Or thus: some have impulse, they move, they pass from place to place; some are fixed to the soil by their roots and are nourished, they grow. Again, animals – into what species do I cut them? Either they are mortal or immortal.

Quod est in has species divido, ut sint corporalia aut incorporalia. Nihil tertium est. Corpus quomodo divido? Ut dicam: aut animantia sunt aut inanima. Rursus animantia quemadmodum divido? Ut dicam: quaedam animum habent, quaedam tantum animam. Aut sic: quaedam inpetum habent, incedunt, transeunt, quaedam solo adfixa radicibus aluntur, crescunt. Rursus animalia in quas species seco? Aut mortalia sunt aut inmortalia.

To certain Stoics the first genus seems to be "the something." Why it seems so, I will add. In the nature of things, they say, some things are, some are not. And even those that are not, the nature of things embraces – things that come into the mind, such as Centaurs, Giants, and whatever else, formed by false thinking, has begun to have some image, though it has no substance.

Primum genus Stoicis quibusdam videtur quid. Quare videatur, subiciam: In rerum, inquiunt, natura quaedam sunt, quaedam non sunt. Et haec autem, quae non sunt, rerum natura conplectitur, quae animo succurrunt, tamquam Centauri, Gigantes et quicquid aliud falsa cogitatione formatum habere aliquam imaginem coepit, quamvis non habeat substantiam.

Now I return to what I promised you: how Plato divides all things whatsoever into six modes. The first, "that which is," is grasped by neither sight nor touch nor any sense; it is thinkable. What is general – like man in general – does not come under the eyes; but the particular does, like Cicero and Cato. Animal is not seen; it is thought. But its species is seen – horse and dog.

Nunc ad id, quod tibi promisi, revertor, quomodo quaecumque sunt, in sex modos Plato partiatur. Primum illud quod est nec visu nec tactu nec ullo sensu conprenditur; cogitabile est. Quod generaliter est, tamquam homo generalis, sub oculos non venit; sed specialis venit, ut Cicero et Cato. Animal non videtur; cogitatur. Videtur autem species eius, equus et canis.

Second, among the things that are, Plato sets that which is eminent and surpasses all. This, he says, is "by excellence." "Poet" is said in common – for the name belongs to all who make verses – but among the Greeks it has already passed into the mark of one: when you hear "the poet," you understand Homer. What then is this? The god, of course, greater and mightier than all.

Secundum ex his, quae sunt, ponit Plato quod eminet et exsuperat omnia. Hoc ait per excellentiam esse. Poeta communiter dicitur, omnibus enim versus facientibus hoc nomen est, sed iam apud Graecos in unius notam cessit; Homerum intellegas, cum audieris poetam. Quid ergo hoc est? Deus scilicet, maior ac potentior cunctis.

The third genus is of the things that properly are; these are innumerable, but set beyond our sight. What they are, you ask. It is Plato’s own furniture: he calls them Ideas, from which all the things we see come to be, and to which all are shaped. These are immortal, immutable, inviolable.

Tertium genus est eorum, quae proprie sunt; innumerabilia haec sunt, sed extra nostrum posita conspectum. Quae sint, interrogas. Propria Platonis supellex est; ideas vocat, ex quibus omnia, quaecumque videmus, fiunt et ad quas cuncta formantur. Hae inmortales, inmutabiles, inviolabiles sunt.

What an Idea is – that is, what it seems to Plato to be – hear: an Idea is the eternal exemplar of the things that come to be by nature. I will add to the definition an interpretation, to make the matter clearer to you: I want to make your portrait. I have you as the model of the picture, from which our mind takes some look to impose on its work. So that face which teaches and instructs me, from which the imitation is sought, is the Idea. Such exemplars, then, the nature of things has in infinite number – of men, of fish, of trees – after which is expressed whatever must be made by her.

Quid sit idea, id est, quid Platoni esse videatur, audi: Idea est eorum, quae natura fiunt, exemplar aeternum. Adiciam definitioni interpretationem, quo tibi res apertior fiat: volo imaginem tuam facere. Exemplar picturae te habeo, ex quo capit aliquem habitum mens nostra, quem operi suo inponat. Ita illa, quae me docet et instruit facies, a qua petitur imitatio, idea est. Talia ergo exemplaria infinita habet rerum natura, hominum, piscium, arborum, ad quae quodcumque fieri ab illa debet, exprimitur.

The fourth place will belong to the idos. What this idos is, you must attend, and charge to Plato, not to me, this difficulty of the matter. There is no subtlety, however, without difficulty. A little before I was using the painter’s image. When he wanted to render Virgil in colors, he looked at the man himself. The Idea was Virgil’s face, the exemplar of the work to come. What the artist draws from this and imposes on his work – that is the idos.

Quartum locum habebit idos. Quid sit hoc idos, attendas oportet et Platoni inputes, non mihi, hanc rerum difficultatem. Nulla est autem sine difficultate subtilitas. Paulo ante pictoris imagine utebar. Ille cum reddere Vergilium coloribus vellet, ipsum intuebatur. Idea erat Vergilii facies, futuri operis exemplar. Ex hac quod artifex trahit et operi suo inposuit, idos est.

What is the difference, you ask? The one is the exemplar, the other the form taken from the exemplar and imposed on the work. The one the artist imitates, the other he makes. A statue has a certain look: this is the idos. The exemplar itself has a certain look, which the maker gazed on as he shaped the statue: this is the Idea. If you want yet another distinction: the idos is in the work, the Idea outside the work – and not only outside the work, but before the work.

Quid intersit, quaeris? Alterum exemplar est, alterum forma ab exemplari sumpta et operi inposita. Alteram artifex imitatur, alteram facit. Habet aliquam faciem statua; haec est idos. Habet aliquam faciem exemplar ipsum, quod intuens opifex statuam figuravit; haec idea est. Etiamnunc si aliam desideras distinctionem, idos in opere est, idea extra opus nec tantum extra opus est, sed ante opus.

The fifth genus is of the things that commonly are; these begin to concern us; here are all things – men, cattle, objects. The sixth genus is of the things that, as it were, are: such as the void, such as time. Whatever we see or touch, Plato does not count among the things he holds properly to be. For they flow and are in constant subtraction and addition. None of us is the same in old age that he was as a youth; none of us is the same in the morning that he was the day before. Our bodies are swept along like rivers. Whatever you see runs on with time. Nothing of what we see stays. I myself, while I say that these things change, have changed.

Quintum genus est eorum, quae communiter sunt; haec incipiunt ad nos pertinere; hic sunt omnia, homines, pecora, res. Sextum genus eorum, quae quasi sunt: tamquam inane, tamquam tempus. Quaecumque videmus aut tangimus, Plato in illis non numerat, quae esse proprie putat. Fluunt enim et in assidua deminutione atque adiectione sunt. Nemo nostrum idem est in senectute, qui fuit iuvenis; nemo nostrum est idem mane, qui fuit pridie. Corpora nostra rapiuntur fluminum more. Quicquid vides, currit cum tempore. Nihil ex iis, quae videmus, manet. Ego ipse, dum loquor mutari ista, mutatus sum.

This is what Heraclitus says: "Into the same river we step down twice and do not step down." For the river’s name stays the same, while the water has passed on. This is plainer in a stream than in a man. But a no less swift current carries us too past; and so I marvel at our madness, that we so greatly love a most fleeting thing, the body, and fear lest one day we die, when every moment is the death of our prior state. Will you not stop fearing that there should happen once what happens daily?

Hoc est, quod ait Heraclitus: In idem flumen bis descendimus et non descendimus. Manet enim idem fluminis nomen, aqua transmissa est. Hoc in amne manifestius est quam in homine. Sed nos quoque non minus velox cursus praetervehit, et ideo admiror dementiam nostram, quod tantopere amamus rem fugacissimam, corpus, timemusque, ne quando moriamur, cum omne momentum mors prioris habitus sit. Vis tu non timere, ne semel fiat, quod cotidie fit!

I have spoken of man – a flowing, perishable matter, exposed to every cause; the universe too, an eternal and unconquered thing, changes and does not stay the same. For though it holds within it all that it held, it holds it otherwise than it held it; it changes the order.

De homine dixi, fluvida materia et caduca et omnibus obnoxia causis; mundus quoque, aeterna res et invicta, mutatur nec idem manet. Quamvis enim omnia in se habeat, quae habuit, aliter habet quam habuit; ordinem mutat.

"What," you say, "will this subtlety profit me?" If you ask me, nothing. But just as that engraver relaxes and calls off his eyes, long strained and tired, and, as the saying goes, feeds them, so we ought sometimes to loosen the mind and refresh it with certain amusements. But let the amusements themselves be work. From these too, if you observe, you will take something that can be made wholesome.

Quid ista, inquis, mihi subtilitas proderit? Si me interrogas, nihil. Sed quemadmodum ille caelator oculos diu intentos ac fatigatos remittit atque avocat et, ut dici solet, pascit; sic nos animum aliquando debemus relaxare et quibusdam oblectamentis reficere. Sed ipsa oblectamenta opera sint. Ex his quoque, si observaveris, sumes, quod possit fieri salutare.

This I am wont to do, Lucilius: from every notion, even one turned the farthest from philosophy, I try to dig out something and make it useful. What is more remote from the reform of morals than the things we just now handled? How can Platonic Ideas make me better? What shall I draw from them to curb my desires? Even this very thing: that all those things which serve the senses, which inflame and provoke us, Plato denies to be among the things that truly are.

Hoc ego, Lucili, facere soleo: ex omni notione, etiam si a philosophia longissime aversa est, eruere aliquid conor et utile efficere. Quid istis, quae modo tractavimus, remotius a reformatione morum? Quomodo meliorem me facere ideae Platonicae possunt? Quid ex istis traham, quod cupiditates meas conprimat? Vel hoc ipsum, quod omnia ista, quae sensibus serviunt, quae nos accendunt et inritant, negat Plato ex his esse, quae vere sint.

Therefore these are imaginary, and bear for a time some look; none of them is stable or solid. And yet we desire them, as though they would either always be, or we would always have them. Weak and flowing, we have taken our stand among empty things; let us send the mind to those things that are eternal. Let us marvel at the forms of all things flitting on high, and at the god moving among them and providing for this – how, since he could not make immortal the things matter forbade, he defends them from death and by reason conquers the fault of the body.

Ergo ista imaginaria sunt et ad tempus aliquam faciem ferunt, nihil horum stabile nec solidum est; et nos tamen cupimus, tamquam aut semper futura aut semper habituri. Inbecilli fluvidique inter vana constitimus; ad illa mittamus animum, quae aeterna sunt. Miremur in sublimi volitantes rerum omnium formas deumque inter illa versantem et hoc providentem, quemadmodum quae inmortalia facere non potuit, quia materia prohibebat, defendat a morte ac ratione vitium corporis vincat.

For all things abide, not because they are eternal, but because they are defended by the care of him who governs; immortal things would need no guardian. The artificer preserves these, conquering by his own power the frailty of the matter. Let us despise all things that are so far from precious that it is doubtful whether they are at all.

Manent enim cuncta, non quia aeterna sunt, sed quia defenduntur cura regentis; inmortalia tutore non egerent. Haec conservat artifex fragilitatem materiae vi sua vincens. Contemnamus omnia, quae adeo pretiosa non sunt, ut an sint omnino, dubium sit.

Let us think, too, of this: if providence exempts the universe itself – no less mortal than we are – from its dangers, then by our own providence we may to some degree prolong this little body’s stay a while longer, if we can rule and restrain the pleasures by which the greater part of men perishes.

Illud simul cogitemus, si mundum ipsum, non minus mortalem quam nos sumus, providentia periculis eximit, posse aliquatenus nostra quoque providentia longiorem prorogari huic corpusculo moram, si voluptates, quibus pars maior perit, potuerimus regere et coercere.

Plato himself brought himself by diligence to old age. He had, indeed, been allotted a strong and sturdy body, and the breadth of his chest had made him his name; but voyages and dangers had drawn much from his strength. Yet thrift, and a measure in the things that summon greed, and diligent care of himself, brought him to old age though many causes stood against it.

Plato ipse ad senectutem se diligentia protulit. Erat quidem corpus validum ac forte sortitus et illi nomen latitudo pectoris fecerat, sed navigationes ac pericula multum detraxerant viribus; parsimonia tamen et eorum, quae aviditatem evocant, modus et diligens sui tutela perduxit illum ad senectutem multis prohibentibus causis.

For you know, I think, that it fell to Plato by the benefit of his diligence that he died on his birthday, completing his eighty-first year without any shortfall. For this reason the magi, who happened to be at Athens, sacrificed to him when he died, judging that he had been of more than human lot, because he had filled out the most perfect number, the one that nine times nine composes. I do not doubt he would have been ready to remit a few days from that sum, and the sacrifice too.

Nam hoc scis, puto, Platoni diligentiae suae beneficio contigisse, quod natali suo decessit et annum unum atque octogensimum inplevit sine ulla deductione. Ideo magi, qui forte Athenis erant, inmolaverunt defuncto, amplioris fuisse sortis quam humanae rati, quia consummasset perfectissimum numerum, quem novem novies multiplicata conponunt. Non dubito, quin paratus sit et paucos dies ex ista summa et sacrificium remittere.

Frugality can prolong old age – which, as I do not think it to be coveted, so neither is it to be refused. It is pleasant to be with oneself as long as possible, when a man has made himself worth enjoying. And so we shall pass our verdict on this: whether one ought to loathe the last stretch of old age and not wait for the end but make it by hand. He is close to a coward who sluggishly awaits his fate, just as that man is given to wine beyond measure who drains the jar and gulps down the dregs too.

Potest frugalitas producere senectutem, quam ut non puto concupiscendam, ita ne recusandam quidem. Iucundum est secum esse quam diutissime, cum quis se dignum, quo frueretur, effecit. Itaque de isto feremus sententiam, an oporteat fastidire senectutis extrema et finem non opperiri, sed manu facere. Prope est a timente, qui fatum segnis expectat, sicut ille ultra modum deditus vino est, qui amphoram exiccat et faecem quoque exorbet.

Of this, however, we shall inquire: whether the last part of life is dregs, or something most clear and pure – provided the mind is unharmed and sound senses help the soul, and the body is not failing and dead before its time. For it makes the greatest difference whether a man extends life or death.

De hoc tamen quaeremus, pars summa vitae utrum faex sit an liquidissimum ac purissimum quiddam, si modo mens sine iniuria est et integri sensus animum iuvant nec defectum et praemortuum corpus est. Plurimum enim refert, vitam aliquis extendat an mortem.

But if the body is useless for its services, why should it not be right to lead out the laboring soul? And perhaps it must be done a little before it ought, lest, when it ought to be done, you cannot do it. And since there is greater danger in living badly than in dying quickly, he is a fool who does not buy off the hazard of a great thing at the small price of a little time. Long old age has carried few to death without injury; for many an inert life has lain useless to itself. How much crueler, then, do you judge it to have lost something of life, than the right to end it?

At si inutile ministeriis corpus est, quidni oporteat educere animum laborantem? Et fortasse paulo ante quam debet, faciendum est, ne cum fieri debebit, facere non possis. Et cum maius periculum sit male vivendi quam cito moriendi, stultus est, qui non exigua temporis mercede magnae rei aleam redimit. Paucos longissima senectus ad mortem sine iniuria pertulit, multis iners vita sine usu sui iacuit; quanto deinde crudelius iudicas aliquid ex vita perdidisse quam ius finiendae?

Do not hear me unwillingly, as though this verdict already touched you, and weigh what I say: I will not abandon old age, if it keeps me whole for myself – whole, that is, on that better side; but if it begins to shake my mind, to tear away its parts, if it leaves me not life but mere breath, I will leap out of the rotten and ruinous building.

Noli me invitus audire, tamquam ad te iam pertineat ista sententia, et quid dicam aestima: non relinquam senectutem, si me totum mihi reservabit, totum autem ab illa parte meliore; at si coeperit concutere mentem, si partes eius convellere, si mihi non vitam reliquerit, sed animam, prosiliam ex aedificio putri ac ruenti.

I will not flee a disease by death, provided it is curable and does not obstruct the soul. I will not lay hands on myself because of pain; to die so is to be conquered. Yet if I learn that I must suffer it without end, I will go out – not because of the pain itself, but because it will be a hindrance to me in everything for which one lives. Weak and cowardly is the man who dies because of pain; a fool, who lives for the sake of pain.

Morbum morte non fugiam, dumtaxat sanabilem nec officientem animo. Non adferam mihi manus propter dolorem; sic mori vinci est. Hunc tamen si sciero perpetuo mihi esse patiendum, exibo, non propter ipsum, sed quia inpedimento mihi futurus est ad omne, propter quod vivitur. Inbecillus est et ignavus, qui propter dolorem moritur, stultus, qui doloris causa vivit.

But I am running on at length. There is besides matter enough to fill out the day. And how shall a man be able to set an end to life, who cannot set one to a letter? Farewell, then – which you will read more gladly than my unbroken talk of death. Farewell.

Sed in longum exeo. Est praeterea materia, quae ducere diem possit. Et quomodo finem imponere vitae poterit, qui epistulae non potest? Vale ergo. Quod libentius quam mortes meras lecturus es. Vale.

I have taken great pleasure from your letter; let me use everyday words, and do not call them back to their Stoic meaning. We believe pleasure to be a fault. So be it; yet we are accustomed to use the word to point to a cheerful disposition of the mind.

Magnam ex epistula tua percepi voluptatem; permitte enim mihi uti verbis publicis nec illa ad significationem Stoicam revoca. Vitium esse voluptatem credimus. Sit sane; ponere tamen illam solemus ad demonstrandam animi hilarem adfectionem.

I know, I say, that pleasure – if we direct our words to our own register – is a thing of ill repute, and that joy falls to none but the wise man. For joy is an elevation of a mind trusting in its own true goods. In common speech, however, we say that we took great joy from someone’s consulship, or wedding, or his wife’s childbirth – which are so far from being joys that they are often the beginnings of future sorrow. To joy, by contrast, it belongs not to cease nor to turn into its opposite.

Scio, inquam, et voluptatem, si ad nostrum album verba derigimus, rem infamem esse et gaudium nisi sapienti non contingere. Est enim animi elatio suis bonis verisque fidentis. Vulgo tamen sic loquimur, ut dicamus magnum gaudium nos ex illius consulatu aut nuptiis aut ex partu uxoris percepisse, quae adeo non sunt gaudia, ut saepe initia futurae tristitiae sint. Gaudio autem iunctum est non desinere nec in contrarium verti.

And the mind’s evil joys –

Et mala mentis gaudia,

Yet I had not said without reason that I took great pleasure from your letter; for although an unschooled man rejoices from an honorable cause, still I call his emotion – uncontrolled and ready to tip the other way at once – "pleasure," moved by the opinion of a false good, immoderate and beyond measure. But to return to my point, hear what delighted me in your letter: you have your words in your power. Your speech does not carry you away nor drag you further than you intended.

Tamen ego non inmerito dixeram cepisse me magnam ex epistula tua voluptatem; quamvis enim ex honesta causa inperitus homo gaudeat, tamen adfectum eius inpotentem et in diversum statim inclinaturum voluptatem voco, opinione falsi boni motam, inmoderatam et inmodicam. Sed ut ad propositum revertar, audi, quid me in epistula tua delectaverit: habes verba in potestate. Non effert te oratio nec longius quam destinasti trahit.

There are many who are called off to what they had not meant to write by the charm of some pleasing word; this does not happen to you: all is compressed and fitted to the matter. You say as much as you wish and signify more than you say. This is the sign of a greater thing: it appears that the mind too has nothing superfluous, nothing swollen.

Multi sunt, qui ad id, quod non proposuerant scribere, alicuius verbi placentis decore vocentur, quod tibi non evenit; pressa sunt omnia et rei aptata. Loqueris quantum vis et plus significas quam loqueris. Hoc maioris rei indicium est; apparet animum quoque nihil habere supervacui, nihil tumidi.

I find, though, metaphors of words – not rash ones, yet ones that have run their own risk. I find images, which if anyone forbids us to use and judges to be granted to poets alone, he seems to me to have read none of the ancients, among whom speech was not yet hunted for applause. Those who spoke simply, for the sake of demonstrating the matter, are full of comparisons, which I think necessary – not for the same reason as for poets, but that they may be props of our weakness, to bring both speaker and hearer into the presence of the thing.

Invenio tamen translationes verborum ut non temerarias ita quae periculum sui fecerint. Invenio imagines, quibus si quis nos uti vetat et poetis illas solis iudicat esse concessas, neminem mihi videtur ex antiquis legisse, apud quos nondum captabatur plausibilis oratio. Illi, qui simpliciter et demonstrandae rei causa eloquebantur, parabolis referti sunt, quas existimo necessarias, non ex eadem causa qua poetis, sed ut inbecillitatis nostrae adminicula sint, ut et dicentem et audientem in rem praesentem adducant.

Sextius, look, I am reading at this very moment – a keen man, who philosophizes in Greek words but with Roman morals. An image he set down moved me: that an army marches in a square column, ready for battle, where the enemy is to be feared on every side. "The same," he says, "the wise man ought to do: let him spread out all his virtues on every side, so that wherever something hostile arises, there the defenses may be ready and answer the commander’s nod without confusion." What we see done in those armies that great generals marshal – that all the troops feel the general’s command at once, so arranged that a signal given by one runs through foot and horse together – this, he says, is considerably more necessary for us.

Sextium ecce cum maxime lego, virum acrem, Graecis verbis, Romanis moribus philosophantem. Movit me imago ab illo posita: ire quadrato agmine exercitum, ubi hostis ab omni parte suspectus est, pugnae paratum; Idem, inquit, sapiens facere debet; omnes virtutes suas undique expandat, ut ubicumque infesti aliquid orietur, illic parata praesidia sint et ad nutum regentis sine tumultu respondeant. Quod in exercitibus iis, quos imperatores magni ordinant, fieri videmus, ut imperium ducis simul omnes copiae sentiant, sic dispositae, ut signum ab uno datum peditem simul equitemque percurrat; hoc aliquanto magis necessarium esse nobis ait.

For they have often feared the enemy without cause, and the route most suspected to them was the safest; folly has nothing at peace. Fear is above it as much as below; both flanks tremble. Dangers follow and come to meet it. It panics at everything, it is unprepared, and is dismayed by its very reinforcements. But the wise man, fortified against every onset, intent, will not give ground, whether poverty, or grief, or disgrace, or pain makes its assault. Undaunted, he will go both against them and among them.

Illi enim saepe hostem timuere sine causa, tutissimumque illis iter quod suspectissimum fuit; nihil stultitia pacatum habet. Tam superne illi metus est quam infra. Utrumque trepidat latus. Secuntur pericula et occurrunt. Ad omnia pavet, inparata est et ipsis ferretur auxiliis. Sapiens autem ad omnem incursum munitus, intentus, non si paupertas, non si luctus, non si ignominia, non si dolor impetum faciat, pedem referet. Interritus et contra illa ibit et inter illa.

Many things bind us, many weaken us. Long have we lain in these vices; it is hard to be washed clean. For we are not merely stained, but dyed through. That we may not pass from one image to another, let me ask this, which I often weigh with myself: why does folly hold us so stubbornly? First, because we do not repel it bravely nor strive toward health with our whole effort; then, because what was discovered by wise men we do not believe enough, nor draw it in with open breasts, and we press on so great a matter too lightly.

Nos multa alligant, multa debilitant. Diu in istis vitiis iacuimus, elui difficile est. Non enim inquinati sumus, sed infecti. Ne ab alia imagine ad aliam transeamus, hoc quaeram, quod saepe mecum dispicio: quid ita nos stultitia tam pertinaciter teneat? Primo quia non fortiter illam repellimus nec toto ad salutem impetu nitimur, deinde quia illa, quae a sapientibus viris reperta sunt, non satis credimus nec apertis pectoribus haurimus leviterque tam magnae rei insistimus.

But how can a man learn against the vices as much as is enough, who learns only as much as the vices leave him free for? None of us has gone down deep. We have plucked only the surface, and to have spent a scrap of time on philosophy seemed amply enough for men so busy.

Quemadmodum autem potest aliquis, quantum satis sit, adversus vitia discere, qui quantum a vitiis vacat, discit? Nemo nostrum in altum descendit. Summa tantum decerpsimus et exiguum temporis impendisse philosophiae satis abundeque occupatis fuit.

This above all hinders us, that we are quickly pleased with ourselves; if we find someone to call us good men, prudent, holy, we acknowledge it. We are not content with modest praise; whatever flattery without shame has heaped on us we seize as our due. We assent to those who affirm we are the best, the wisest, though we know they often lie about much. And we so indulge ourselves that we want to be praised for the very thing whose opposite we are at that moment doing. One hears himself called most gentle in the midst of his tortures, most generous in his robberies, most temperate in his drunkenness and lusts. It follows, then, that we are unwilling to change because we believe ourselves the best.

Illud praecipue impedit, quod cito nobis placemus; si invenimus, qui nos bonos viros dicat, qui prudentes, qui sanctos, adgnoscimus. Non sumus modica laudatione contenti; quicquid in nos adulatio sine pudore congessit, tamquam debitum prendimus. Optimos nos esse, sapientissimos adfirmantibus adsentimur, cum sciamus illos saepe multa mentiri. Adeoque indulgemus nobis, ut laudari velimus in id, cui contraria cum maxime facimus. Mitissimum ille se in ipsis suppliciis audit, in rapinis liberalissimum, in ebrietatibus ac libidinibus temperantissimum. Sequitur itaque, ut ideo mutari nolimus, quia nos optimos esse credimus.

Alexander, when he was now roaming through India and laying waste with war peoples not even well known to their neighbors, in the siege of a certain city, while he went round the walls seeking the weakest part of the defenses, was struck by an arrow; for a long while he persisted in sitting his horse and carrying on what he had begun. Then, when the blood was checked and the pain of the dry wound grew, and his leg, hanging from the horse, had gradually gone numb, he was forced to halt, and said: "Everyone swears I am the son of Jove, but this wound cries out that I am a man."

Alexander cum iam in India vagaretur et gentes ne finitimis quidem satis notas bello vastaret, in obsidione cuiusdam urbis, dum circumit muros et inbecillissima moenium quaerit, sagitta ictus diu persedere et incepta agere perseveravit. Deinde cum represso sanguine sicci vulneris dolor cresceret et crus suspensum equo paulatim optorpuisset, coactus apsistere absistere Omnes, inquit, iurant esse me Iovis filium, sed vulnus hoc hominem esse me clamat.

Let us do the same. Each, according to his share, flattery makes a fool. Let us say: "You indeed call me prudent, but I see how many useless things I covet, how many harmful things I wish for. I do not even understand what satiety shows the animals – what measure there should be in food, what in drink. How much I can hold, I still do not know."

Idem nos faciamus. Pro sua quemque portione adulatio infatuat. Dicamus: Vos quidem dicitis me prudentem esse, ego autem video, quam multa inutilia concupiscam, nocitura optem. Ne hoc quidem intellego, quod animalibus satietas monstrat, quis cibo debeat esse, quis potioni modus. Quantum capiam adhuc nescio.

Now I will teach you how to understand that you are not wise. The wise man is full of joy, cheerful and calm, unshaken; he lives on equal terms with the gods. Now consult yourself: if you are never sad, if no hope troubles your mind with expectation of the future, if through days and nights the tenor of your mind is even and equal, upright and pleased with itself, you have reached the summit of the human good. But if you reach after pleasures from every side and of every kind, know that you fall as far short of wisdom as of joy. You long to come to it, but you err if you hope to arrive there amid riches, amid honors – that is, if you seek joy amid anxieties. Those things, which you pursue as though they would give gladness and pleasure, are the causes of pains.

Iam docebo, quemadmodum intellegas te non esse sapientem. Sapiens ille plenus est gaudio, hilaris et placidus, inconcussus; cum dis ex pari vivit. Nunc ipse te consule; si numquam maestus es, nulla spes animum tuum futuri exspectatione sollicitat, si per dies noctesque par et aequalis animi tenor erecti et placentis sibi est, pervenisti ad humani boni summam. Sed si adpetis voluptates et undique et omnes, scito tantum tibi ex sapientia, quantum ex gaudio deesse. Ad hoc cupis pervenire, sed erras, qui inter divitias illuc venturum esse te speras, inter honores, id est, gaudium inter sollicitudines quaeris. Ista, quae sic petis tamquam datura laetitiam ac voluptatem, causae dolorum sunt.

All men, I say, strive toward joy, but they do not know whence to get it stable and great. One from banquets and luxury, one from ambition and the crowd of clients about him, one from a mistress, another from the empty show of liberal studies and from letters that heal nothing; all these are deceived by delusive and brief delights, like drunkenness, which pays for one hour’s cheerful madness with a long time’s disgust, like the applause and favor of friendly acclamation, which is both gotten and atoned for with great anxiety.

Omnes, inquam, illi tendunt ad gaudium, sed unde stabile magnumque consequantur, ignorant. Ille ex conviviis et luxuria, ille ex ambitione et circumfusa clientium turba, ille ex amica, alius ex studiorum liberalium vana ostentatione et nihil sanantibus litteris; omnes istos oblectamenta fallacia et brevia decipiunt, sicut ebrietas, quae unius horae hilarem insaniam longi temporis taedio pensat, sicut plausus et adclamationis secundae favor, qui magna sollicitudine et partus est et expiandus.

Think on this, then: that this is the effect of wisdom – the evenness of joy. The wise man’s mind is like the world above the moon: there it is always clear. You have, then, a reason too to wish to be wise, if it is never without joy. This joy is not born except from the consciousness of the virtues.

Hoc ergo cogita, hunc esse sapientiae effectum, gaudii aequalitatem. Talis est sapientis animus, qualis mundus super lunam; semper illic serenum est. Habes ergo et quare velis sapiens esse, si numquam sine gaudio est. Gaudium hoc non nascitur nisi ex virtutum conscientia.

For how we passed the last night amid false joys, you know.

Namque ut supremam falsa inter gaudia noctem Egerimus, nosti.

The luxurious man passes every night amid false joys, and indeed as though it were his last; but that joy which follows the gods and the rivals of the gods is not interrupted, does not cease – it would cease if it were taken from elsewhere. Because it is not of another’s gift, it is not even at another’s discretion. What fortune did not give, she does not snatch away. Farewell.

Omnem luxuriosi noctem inter falsa gaudia et quidem tamquam supremam agunt; illud gaudium, quod deos deorumque aemulos sequitur, non interrumpitur, non desinit; desineret, si sumptum esset aliunde. Quia non est alieni muneris, ne arbitrii quidem alieni est. Quod non dedit fortuna, non eripit. Vale.

I complain, I quarrel, I am angry. Even now do you wish for what your nurse wished for you, or your tutor, or your mother? Do you not yet understand how much evil they wished? Oh, how hostile to us are the prayers of our own people! And the more hostile, the more luckily they have turned out. I am no longer surprised if all evils follow us from earliest childhood; we grew up amid our parents’ curses. May the gods hear our own voice too on our behalf – a voice that asks for nothing.

Queror, litigo, irascor. Etiamnunc optas, quod tibi optavit nutrix tua aut paedagogus aut mater? Nondum intellegis, quantum mali optaverint? O quam inimica nobis sunt vota nostrorum! Eo quidem inimiciora quo cessere felicius. Iam non admiror, si omnia nos a prima pueritia mala secuntur; inter execrationes parentum crevimus. Exaudiant di nostram quoque pro nobis vocem gratuitam.

How long shall we go on demanding something of the gods, as though we could not yet feed ourselves? How long shall we fill the plains of great cities with our sowings? How long shall a whole people reap for us? How long shall many ships – and from more than one sea – carry up the furnishings of a single table? A bull is filled with the pasture of a very few acres; one forest is enough for several elephants; man feeds on both earth and sea.

Quousque poscemus aliquid deos ita quasi nondum ipsi alere nos possimus? Quamdiu sationibus inplebimus magnarum urbium campos? Quamdiu nobis populus metet? Quamdiu unius mensae instrumentum multa navigia et quidem non ex uno mari subvehent? Taurus paucissimorum iugerum pascuo impletur; una silva elephantis pluribus sufficit; homo et terra et mari pascitur.

What then? Did nature give us so insatiable a belly, when she had given us such modest bodies, that we should outdo the greed of the vastest and most voracious animals? By no means. For how little is it that is given to nature? She is dismissed with little. It is not the hunger of our belly that costs us dear, but ambition.

Quid ergo? Tam insatiabilem nobis natura alvum dedit, cum tam modica corpora dedisset, ut vastissimorum edacissimorumque animalium aviditatem vinceremus? Minime. Quantulum est enim, quod naturae datur? Parvo illa dimittitur. Non fames nobis ventris nostri magno constat, sed ambitio.

These men, therefore, as Sallust says, "obedient to the belly," let us count in the rank of animals, not of men – and some indeed not even of animals, but of the dead. He lives who is of use to many; he lives who uses himself. But those who lurk and lie torpid are in their house as in a tomb. You may inscribe their name on the very threshold in marble: they have gone before their own death. Farewell.

Hos itaque, ut ait Sallustius, ventri oboedientes animalium loco numeremus, non hominum, quosdam vero ne animalium quidem, sed mortuorum. Vivit is, qui multis usui est, vivit is, qui se utitur; qui vero latitant et torpent, sic in domo sunt, quomodo in conditivo. Horum licet in limine ipso nomen marmori inscribas, mortem suam antecesserunt. Vale.

Let us stop wishing for what we once wished. I, at least, do this: an old man, I have ceased to wish for what I wished as a boy. To this one thing the days go, to this the nights; this is my work, this my thought: to put an end to old evils. I work at making a single day stand for a whole life. Nor, by Hercules, do I snatch it as though it were my last, but I look at it as one that could even be the last.

Desinamus, quod voluimus, velle. Ego certe id ago: senex ea desii velle quae puer volui. In hoc unum eunt dies, in hoc noctes, hoc opus meum est, haec cogitatio: inponere veteribus malis finem. Id ago, ut mihi instar totius vitae dies sit. Nec mehercules tamquam ultimum rapio, sed sic illum aspicio, tamquam esse vel ultimus possit.

In this spirit I write you this letter, as though death were about to call me away at the very moment of writing. I am ready to go out, and for that reason I shall enjoy life – because I do not hang too anxiously on how long this will last. Before old age I took care to live well; in old age, to die well; and to die well is to die willingly. Take pains never to do anything unwilling.

Hoc animo tibi hanc epistulam scribo, tamquam me cum maxime scribentem mors evocatura sit. Paratus exire sum et ideo fruar vita, quia quam diu futurum hoc sit, non nimis pendeo. Ante senectutem curavi, ut bene viverem, in senectute, ut bene moriar; bene autem mori est libenter mori. Da operam, ne quid umquam invitus facias.

Whatever is going to be necessary to one who resists, to one who is willing is no necessity. So I say: he who takes commands willingly escapes the bitterest part of slavery – doing what he does not want. Not the man who does something on order is wretched, but the man who does it unwilling. Let us therefore so compose the mind that whatever the situation demands, we may want it – and above all that we may think on our own end without sadness.

Quicquid necesse futurum est repugnanti, volenti necessitas non est. Ita dico: qui imperia libens excipit, partem acerbissimam servitutis effugit, facere quod nolit. Non qui iussus aliquid facit, miser est, set qui invitus facit. Itaque sic animum conponamus, ut quicquid res exiget, id velimus et in primis ut finem nostri sine tristitia cogitemus.

We must be prepared for death before life. Life is well enough furnished, but we are greedy for its furnishings; something seems to be lacking to us, and always will seem so. That we have lived enough, neither years nor days make, but the mind. I have lived, dearest Lucilius, as much as was enough; full, I await death. Farewell.

Ante ad mortem quam ad vitam praeparandi sumus. Satis instructa vita est, sed nos in instrumenta eius avidi sumus; deesse aliquid nobis videtur et semper videbitur. Ut satis vixerimus, nec anni nec dies faciunt, sed animus. Vixi, Lucili carissime, quantum satis erat; mortem plenus exspecto. Vale.

They lie who want it to seem that a crowd of business stands in the way of their liberal studies; they pretend occupations and enlarge them and occupy themselves. I am free, Lucilius, free – and wherever I am, there I am my own. For I do not hand myself over to affairs, but lend myself, nor do I hunt for reasons to waste time. And in whatever place I have halted, there I handle my own thoughts and turn over something wholesome in my mind.

Mentiuntur, qui sibi obstare ad studia liberali turbam negotiorum videri volunt; simulant occupationes et augent et ipsi se occupant. Vaco, Lucili, vaco et ubicumque sum, ibi meus sum. Rebus enim me non trado, sed commodo, nec consector perdendi temporis causas. Et quocumque constiti loco, ibi cogitationes meas tracto et aliquid in animo salutare converso.

When I have given myself to friends, I still do not withdraw from myself, nor do I linger with those whom some span of time has thrown me together with, or a cause born of civil duty, but I am with each best man; to them, in whatever place, in whatever age they have lived, I send my mind.

Cum me amicis dedi non tamen mihi abduco, nec cum illis moror, quibus me tempus aliquod congregavit aut causa ex officio nata civili, sed cum optimo quoque sum; ad illos, in quocumque loco, in quocumque saeculo fuerunt, animum meum mitto.

Demetrius, the best of men, I carry about with me, and leaving the purple-clad behind, I talk with him, half-naked, and I admire him. Why should I not admire him? I have seen that nothing is lacking to him. A man can despise all things; no man can have all things. The shortest road to riches is through the contempt of riches. But our Demetrius lives thus – not as though he had despised all things, but as though he had left others to have them. Farewell.

Demetrium, virorum optimum, mecum circumfero et relictis conchyliatis cum illo seminudo loquor, illum admiror. Quidni admirer? Vidi nihil ei deesse. Contemnere aliquis omnia potest, omnia habere nemo potest. Brevissima ad divitias per contemptum divitiarum via est. Demetrius autem noster sic vivit, non tamquam contempserit omnia, sed tamquam aliis habenda permiserit. Vale.

I am grieved that your friend Flaccus has died; yet I do not want you to grieve more than is fair. That you should not grieve at all, I will scarcely dare to demand – and I know it is better. But to whom will that firmness of mind fall, except to one already lifted far above fortune? That man too will be pinched by this thing, but only pinched. We, however, may be forgiven for slipping into tears, if they have not run down too freely, if we ourselves have checked them. Let the eyes neither be dry when a friend is lost, nor overflow. We should weep, not wail.

Moleste fero decessisse Flaccum, amicum tuum, plus tamen aequo dolere te nolo. Illud, ut non doleas, vix audebo exigere; et esse melius scio. Sed cui ista firmitas animi continget nisi iam multum supra fortunam elato? Illum quoque ista res vellicabit, sed tantum vellicabit Nobis autem ignosci potest prolapsis ad lacrimas, si non nimiae decucurrerunt, si ipsi illas repressimus. Nec sicci sint oculi amisso amico nec fluant. Lacrimandum est, non plorandum.

Do I seem to set you a hard law, when the greatest of the Greek poets granted the right of weeping for one day only – when he said that even Niobe thought of food? You ask whence come lamentations, whence immoderate weeping? Through tears we seek proofs of our longing, and we do not follow our grief but display it. No one is sad for himself. O unhappy folly! There is an ambition even in grief.

Duram tibi legem videor ponere, cum poetarum Graecorum maximus ius flendi dederit in unum dumtaxat diem, cum dixerit etiam Niobam de cibo cogitasse? Quaeris, unde sint lamentationes, unde inmodici fletus? Per lacrimas argumenta desiderii quaerimus et dolorem non sequimur, sed ostendimus. Nemo tristis sibi est. O infelicem stultitiam! Est aliqua et doloris ambitio.

"What then?" you say. "Shall I forget my friend?" You promise him a brief memory in your keeping, if it is to last only as long as your grief; soon any chance thing will turn that brow to laughter. I do not put it off to a more distant time, in which every longing is soothed, in which even the sharpest grief subsides. As soon as you stop watching yourself, that image of sorrow will depart; now you yourself guard your grief. But even from one who guards it, it slips away – and the sharper it is, the sooner it ends.

Quid ergo? inquis, Obliviscar amici? Brevem illi apud te memoriam promittis, si cum dolore mansura est; iam istam frontem ad risum quaelibet fortuita res transferet. Non differo in longius tempus, quo desiderium omne mulcetur, quo etiam acerrimi luctus residunt. Cum primum te observare desieris, imago ista tristitiae discedet; nunc ipse custodis dolorem tuum. Sed custodienti quoque elabitur eoque citius, quo est acrior, desinit.

Let us see to it that the recollection of those we have lost becomes pleasant to us. No one returns gladly to what he will think on only with torment. So it must be that, with some bite, the name of those we loved and lost comes back to us. But this bite too has its own pleasure.

Id agamus, ut iucunda nobis amissorum fiat recordatio. Nemo libenter ad id redit, quod non sine tormento cogitaturus est. Sic et illud fieri necesse est, ut cum aliquo nobis morsu amissorum, quos amavimus, nomen occurrat. Sed hic quoque morsus habet suam voluptatem.

For, as our Attalus used to say, the memory of dead friends is pleasant in the way certain fruits are sweetly tart, in the way the very bitterness delights us in wine grown too old; but when an interval has come between, everything that pained is quenched, and a pure pleasure comes to us.

Nam, ut dicere solebat Attalus noster, sic amicorum defunctorum memoria iucunda est, quomodo poma quaedam sunt suaviter aspera, quomodo in vino nimis veteri ipsa nos amaritudo delectat; cum vero intervenit spatium, omne, quod angebat, extinguitur et pura ad nos voluptas venit.

If we believe him: "To think of friends still safe is to enjoy honey and cake; the recollection of those who have been pleases not without a certain tartness." But who would deny that these sharp things too, having something of austerity, stir the appetite?

Si illi credimus, Amicos incolumes cogitare melle ac placenta frui est; eorum, qui fuerunt, retractatio non sine acerbitate quadam iuvat. Quis autem negaverit haec acria quoque et habentia austeritatis aliquid stomachum excitare?

I do not feel the same; to me the thought of dead friends is sweet and soothing. For I had them as though about to lose them, I have lost them as though I have them still. So do, my Lucilius, what befits your fairness: stop misreading the kindness of fortune. She has taken away, but she gave.

Ego non idem sentio, mihi amicorum defunctorum cogitatio dulcis ac blanda est. Habui enim illos tamquam amissurus, amisi tamquam habeam. Fac ergo, mi Lucili, quod aequitatem tuam decet, desine beneficium fortunae male interpretari; abstulit, sed dedit.

Let us therefore enjoy our friends greedily, because how long this may fall to us is uncertain. Let us think how often we have left them when about to set out on some far journey, how often, staying in the same place, we have not seen them; we shall understand that we wasted more time while they were alive.

Ideo amicis avide fruamur, quia quamdiu contingere hoc possit, incertum est. Cogitemus, quam saepe illos reliquerimus in aliquam peregrinationem longinquam exituri, quam saepe eodem morantes loco non viderimus; intellegemus plus nos temporis in vivis perdidisse.

But will you bear with those who keep their friends most carelessly and mourn them most wretchedly, and love no one unless they have lost him? And so they grieve the more lavishly then, because they fear it may be doubted whether they loved at all; they seek late proofs of their feeling.

Feras autem hos, qui neglegentissime amicos habent, miserrime lugent, nec amant quemquam, nisi perdiderunt? Ideoque tunc effusius maerent, quia verentur, ne dubium sit, an amaverint; sera indicia adfectus sui quaerunt.

If we have other friends, we both deserve ill of them and think ill of them, if they avail too little as a solace for one buried; if we have none, we have done ourselves a greater injury than we received from fortune – she took away one, we, every one we have not made.

Si habemus alios amicos, male de iis et meremur et existimamus, qui parum valent in unius elati solacium; si non habemus, maiorem iniuriam ipsi nobis fecimus quam a fortuna accepimus; illa unum abstulit, nos, quemcumque non fecimus.

Besides, he did not love even one too much, who could not love more than one. If a man stripped of his only tunic chose to bewail himself rather than look about how to escape the cold and find something to cover his shoulders, would he not seem to you most foolish? The one you loved, you have buried; seek one to love.

Deinde ne unum quidem nimis amavit, qui plus quam unum amare non potuit. Si quis despoliatus amissa unica tunica conplorare se malit quam circumspicere, quomodo frigus effugiat et aliquid inveniat, quo tegat scapulas, nonne tibi videatur stultissimus? Quem amabas, extulisti; quaere, quem ames.

It is better to replace a friend than to weep for one. I know what I am about to add is by now worn threadbare, yet I will not pass it over because everyone has said it: an end of grieving even the man who has not made one by design has found in time. But the foulest remedy of mourning, in a man of sense, is weariness of mourning. I would rather you left your grief than were left by it; and stop as soon as possible doing what, even if you wished, you could not do for long.

Satius est amicum reparare quam flere. Scio pertritum iam hoc esse, quod adiecturus sum, non ideo tamen praetermittam, quia ab omnibus dictum est: finem dolendi etiam qui consilio non fecerat, tempore invenit. Turpissimum autem est in homine prudente remedium maeroris lassitudo maerendi. Malo relinquas dolorem quam ab illo relinquaris, et quam primum id facere desiste, quod etiam si voles, diu facere non poteris.

Our ancestors set a year for women to mourn – not that they should mourn so long, but that they should mourn no longer; for men there is no lawful time, because there is none honorable. Yet which of those poor little women, scarcely dragged back from the pyre, scarcely torn from the corpse, will you give me whose tears lasted a whole month? Nothing comes into hatred sooner than grief, which when fresh finds a comforter and draws some to itself, but when grown old is laughed at – and not without reason. For it is either feigned or foolish.

Annum feminis ad lugendum constituere maiores, non ut tam diu lugerent, sed ne diutius; viris nullum legitimum tempus est, quia nullum honestum. Quam tamen mihi ex illis mulierculis dabis vix retractis a rogo, vix a cadavere revulsis, cui lacrimae in totum mensem duraverint? Nulla res citius in odium venit quam dolor, qui recens consolatorem invenit et aliquos ad se adducit, inveteratus vero deridetur, nec inmerito. Aut enim simulatus aut stultus est.

These things I write to you – I, who wept for Annaeus Serenus, most dear to me, so immoderately that, what I should least wish, I am among the examples of those whom grief conquered. Today, however, I condemn my act, and I understand that the greatest cause of my so mourning was that I had never thought he could die before me. This one thing occurred to me: that he was younger, and much younger – as though the fates kept order.

Haec tibi scribo is, qui Annaeum Serenum, carissimum mihi, tam inmodice flevi, ut, quod minime velim, inter exempla sim eorum, quos dolor vicit. Hodie autem factum meum damno et intellego maximam mihi causam sic lugendi fuisse, quod numquam cogitaveram mori eum ante me posse. Hoc unum mihi occurrebat, minorem esse et multo minorem, tamquam ordinem fata servarent.

So let us think constantly of our own mortality as much as of that of all whom we love. Then I should have said: "My Serenus is younger; what does it matter? He ought to die after me, but he can die before me." Because I did not, fortune struck me suddenly, unprepared. Now think that all things are mortal, and mortal by no fixed law. Today can happen whatever can ever happen.

Itaque adsidue cogitemus tam de nostra quam omnium, quos diligimus, mortalitate. Tunc ego debui dicere: Minor est Serenus meus; quid ad rem pertinet? Post me mori debet, sed ante me potest. Quia non feci, inparatum subito fortuna percussit. Nunc cogita omnia et mortalia esse et incerta lege mortalia. Hodie fieri potest, quicquid umquam potest.

Let us think, then, dearest Lucilius, that we shall soon come to the place where we mourn that he has come. And perhaps, if only the report of the wise is true and some place receives us, the one we think has perished has only been sent ahead. Farewell.

Cogitemus ergo, Lucili carissime, cito nos eo perventuros, quo illum pervenisse maeremus. Et fortasse, si modo vera sapientium fama est recipitque nos locus aliquis, quem putamus perisse, praemissus est. Vale.

You were with us yesterday. You may complain, if only yesterday. That is why I added "with us." For you are always with me. Some friends had come in, on whose account a larger smoke was made – not the kind that bursts from the kitchens of the fashionable and frightens the night-watch, but a modest one, which signifies that guests have come.

Fuisti here nobiscum. Potes queri, si here tantum. Ideo adieci nobiscum. Mecum enim semper es. Intervenerant quidam amici, propter quos maior fumus fieret, non hic, qui erumpere ex lautorum culinis et terrere vigiles solet, sed hic modicus, qui hospites venisse significet.

Our talk was varied, as at a banquet, bringing no matter through to its end, but leaping from one thing to another. Then a book was read, by Quintus Sextius the father, a great man – if you trust me at all – and, though he denies it, a Stoic.

Varius nobis fuit sermo, ut in convivio, nullam rem usque ad exitum adducens, sed aliunde alio transiliens. Lectus est deinde liber Quinti Sextii patris, magni, si quid mihi credis, viri et, licet neget, Stoici.

What vigor is in him, good gods, what spirit! This you will not find in all philosophers; the writings of some who hold a famous name are bloodless. They lay down rules, they dispute, they quibble, they do not make spirit, because they have none; when you have read Sextius, you will say: "He lives, he is vigorous, he is free, he is above man, he sends me away full of vast confidence."

Quantus in illo, di boni, vigor est, quantum animi! Hoc non in omnibus philosophis invenies; quorundam scripta clarum habentium nomen exanguia sunt. Instituunt, disputant, cavillantur, non faciunt animum, quia non habent; cum legeris Sextium, dices: Vivit, viget, liber est, supra hominem est, dimittit me plenum ingentis fiduciae.

And amid the unwarlike herds he prays a foaming boar were granted, or a tawny lion to come down the mountain.

Spumantemque dari pecora inter inertia votis Optat aprum aut fulvum descendere monte leonem.

I like to have something to conquer, by whose endurance I may be exercised. For this too is excellent in Sextius, that he will both show you the greatness of the happy life and not make you despair of it; you will know that it stands on a height, yet penetrable to one who wills.

Libet aliquid habere quod vincam, cuius patientia exercear. Nam hoc quoque egregium Sextius habet, quod et ostendet tibi beatae vitae magnitudinem et desperationem eius non faciet; scies esse illam in excelso, sed volenti penetrabilem.

This same thing virtue itself will grant you: that you should admire it and yet hope for it. For me, at least, the very contemplation of wisdom is wont to take much of my time; I gaze on it, astonished, no otherwise than I gaze sometimes on the universe itself, which I often see as though a new spectator.

Hoc idem virtus tibi ipsa praestabit, ut illam admireris et tamen speres. Mihi certe multum auferre temporis solet contemplatio ipsa sapientiae; non aliter illam intueor obstupefactus quam ipsum interim mundum, quem saepe tamquam spectator novus video.

And so I revere the discoveries of wisdom and their discoverers; it delights me to approach, as it were, the inheritance of many. For me these things were acquired, for me they were labored over. But let us play the good head of a household; let us make larger what we have received. Let this inheritance pass greater from me to posterity. Much work still remains, and much will remain, nor will the chance of adding something further be shut off from anyone born after a thousand ages.

Veneror itaque inventa sapientiae inventoresque; adire tamquam multorum hereditatem iuvat. Mihi ista adquisita, mihi laborata sunt. Sed agamus bonum patrem familiae; faciamus ampliora, quae accepimus. Maior ista hereditas a me ad posteros transeat. Multum adhuc restat operis multumque restabit, nec ulli nato post mille saecula praecludetur occasio aliquid adhuc adiciendi.

But even if all things were discovered by the ancients, this will always be new: the use, and the knowledge and arrangement of what others discovered. Suppose medicines were left to us by which the eyes might be healed; I need not seek others, but these must still be fitted to the diseases and the times. With this the roughness of the eyes is smoothed; with this the thickness of the eyelids is thinned; with this a sudden rush of humor is averted; with this the sight is sharpened: you must grind them, and choose the time, and apply to each its measure. The remedies of the mind were discovered by the ancients; but how they are to be applied, or when, is the work of ours to seek.

Sed etiam si omnia a veteribus inventa sunt, hoc semper novum erit, usus et inventorum ab aliis scientia ac dispositio. Puta relicta nobis medicamenta, quibus sanarentur oculi; non opus est mihi alia quaerere, sed haec tamen morbis et temporibus aptanda sunt. Hoc asperitas oculorum conlevatur; hoc palpebrarum crassitudo tenuatur; hoc vis subita et umor avertitur; hoc acuetur visus; teras ista oportet et eligas tempus, adhibeas singulis modum. Animi remedia inventa sunt ab antiquis; quomodo autem admoveantur aut quando, nostri operis est quaerere.

Much was done by those who were before us, but not finished. Yet they are to be looked up to and worshipped in the manner of gods. Why should I not have images of great men too as goads to the spirit, and celebrate their birthdays? Why should I not always name them for honor’s sake? The veneration I owe my teachers, the same I owe those teachers of the human race, from whom the beginnings of so great a good have flowed.

Multum egerunt, qui ante nos fuerunt, sed non peregerunt. Suspiciendi tamen sunt et ritu deorum colendi. Quidni ego magnorum virorum et imagines habeam incitamenta animi et natales celebrem? Quidni ego illos honoris causa semper appellem? Quam venerationem praeceptoribus meis debeo, eandem illis praeceptoribus generis humani, a quibus tanti boni initia fluxerunt.

If I see a consul or a praetor, I will do all by which honor is usually paid to honor: I will leap down from my horse, uncover my head, give way on the path. What then? Shall I receive both the Catos, and Laelius the Wise, and Socrates with Plato, and Zeno and Cleanthes into my mind without the highest regard? I indeed revere them, and always rise at such great names. Farewell.

Si consulem videro aut praetorem, omnia, quibus honor haberi honori solet, faciam; equo desiliam, caput adaperiam, semita cedam. Quid ergo? Marcum Catonem utrumque et Laelium Sapientem et Socraten cum Platone et Zenonem Cleanthenque in animum meum sine dignatione summa recipiam? Ego vero illos veneror et tantis nominibus semper adsurgo. Vale.

I divided yesterday with poor health; it claimed the forenoon for itself, and yielded the afternoon to me. So I first tried my mind with reading. Then, when it had taken that, I dared to command it more – or rather to allow it more; I wrote something, and indeed more intently than I am wont, while I struggle with a difficult subject and am unwilling to be beaten, until friends came in who used force on me and restrained me like a sick man without self-control.

Hesternum diem divisi cum mala valetudine; antemeridianum illa sibi vindicavit, postmeridiano mihi cessit. Itaque lectione primum temptavi animum. Deinde cum hanc recepisset, plus illi imperare ausus sum, immo permittere; aliquid scripsi et quidem intentius quam soleo, dum cum materia difficili contendo et vinci nolo, donec intervenerunt amici, qui mihi vim adferrent et tamquam aegrum intemperantem coercerent.

In the place of the pen, conversation succeeded, and I will carry over to you the part of it that is in dispute. We have appointed you arbiter. You have more business than you think; the case is threefold. Our Stoics say, as you know, that there are two things in nature from which all things come to be: cause and matter. Matter lies inert, a thing ready for all, that would lie idle if no one moved it. But cause – that is, reason – shapes matter and turns it wherever it wishes, and produces from it varied works. There must be, then, that from which a thing is made, and then that by which it is made. The latter is cause, the former matter.

In locum stili sermo successit, ex quo eam partem ad te perferam, quae in lite est. Te arbitrum addiximus. Plus negotii habes quam existimas; triplex causa est. Dicunt, ut scis, Stoici nostri duo esse in rerum natura, ex quibus omnia fiant, causam et materiam. Materia iacet iners, res ad omnia parata, cessatura, si nemo moveat. Causa autem, id est ratio, materiam format et quocumque vult versat, ex illa varia opera producit. Esse ergo debet, unde fiat aliquid, deinde a quo fiat. Hoc causa est, illud materia.

Every art is an imitation of nature. So what I was saying of the universe, transfer to these things that must be made by man. A statue both had matter, which could submit to the artist, and an artist, who could give the matter a face. So in the statue the matter was bronze, the cause the maker. The same condition belongs to all things: they consist of that which is made, and of that which makes.

Omnis ars naturae imitatio est. Itaque quod de universo dicebam, ad haec transfer, quae ab homine facienda sunt. Statua et materiam habuit, quae pateretur artificem, et artificem, qui materiae daret faciem. Ergo in statua materia aes fuit, causa opifex Eadem condicio rerum omnium est; ex eo constant, quod fit, et ex eo, quod facit.

The Stoics hold there is one cause – that which makes. Aristotle thinks cause is said in three ways. "The first cause," he says, "is matter itself, without which nothing can be effected; the second is the maker; the third is the form, which is imposed on each work as on a statue" – for this Aristotle calls the idos. "A fourth too," he says, "is added to these: the purpose of the whole work."

Stoicis placet unam causam esse, id, quod facit. Aristoteles putat causam tribus modis dici: Prima, inquit, causa est ipsa materia, sine qua nihil potest effici; secunda opifex. Tertia est forma, quae unicuique operi inponitur tamquam statuae; nam hanc Aristoteles idos vocat. Quarta quoque, inquit, his accedit, propositum totius operis.

What this is, I will make clear. The bronze is the first cause of the statue. For it would never have been made, had there not been that from which it was cast or drawn. The second cause is the artist. For that bronze could not have been shaped into the form of a statue, had not skilled hands come to it. The third cause is the form. For that statue would not be called "Spear-bearer" or "Fillet-binder," had not this look been pressed upon it. The fourth cause is the purpose of making. For unless this had been, it would not have been made.

Quid sit hoc, aperiam. Aes prima statuae causa est. Numquam enim facta esset, nisi fuisset id, ex quo funderetur ducereturve. Secunda causa artifex est. Non potuisset enim aes illud in habitum statuae figurari, nisi accessissent peritae manus. Tertia causa est forma. Neque enim statua ista doryphoros aut diadumenos vocaretur, nisi haec illi esset inpressa facies. Quarta causa est faciendi propositum. Nam nisi hoc fuisset, facta non esset.

What is the purpose? That which invited the artist, which he pursued and so made; it is either money, if he fashioned it to sell, or glory, if he labored for a name, or religion, if he prepared a gift for a temple. So this too is a cause, the thing for the sake of which it is made; or do you not think that what, if removed, would leave the work unmade, is to be counted among the causes of the work?

Quid est propositum? Quod invitavit artificem, quod ille secutus fecit; vel pecunia est haec, si venditurus fabricavit, vel gloria, si laboravit in nomen, vel religio, si donum templo paravit. Ergo et haec causa est, propter quam fit; an non putas inter causas facti operis esse numerandum, quo remoto factum non esset?

To these Plato adds a fifth: the exemplar, which he himself calls the Idea; for this is that to which the artist looks as he makes what he intended. And it makes no difference whether he has his exemplar outside, to which he turns his eyes, or within, which he himself conceived and set there. These exemplars of all things the god has within himself, and he has embraced in his mind the numbers and measures of all that must be done; he is full of those figures which Plato calls Ideas – immortal, immutable, untiring. And so men indeed perish, but humanity itself, after which man is fashioned, abides, and while men labor and die, it suffers nothing.

His quintam Plato adicit exemplar, quam ipse idean vocat; hoc est enim, ad quod respiciens artifex id, quod destinabat, effecit. Nihil autem ad rem pertinet, utrum foris habeat exemplar, ad quod referat oculos, an intus, quod ibi ipse concepit et posuit. Haec exemplaria rerum omnium deus intra se habet numerosque universorum, quae agenda sunt, et modos mente conplexus est; plenus his figuris est, quas Plato ideas appellat, inmortales, inmutabiles, infatigabiles. Itaque homines quidem pereunt, ipsa autem humanitas, ad quam homo effingitur, permanet, et hominibus laborantibus, intereuntibus illa nihil patitur.

There are, then, five causes, as Plato says: that from which, that by which, that in which, that toward which, that for the sake of which. Last, that which is from these. As in a statue – since we have begun to speak of it – that from which is the bronze, that by which is the artist, that in which is the form which is fitted to it, that toward which is the exemplar which the maker imitates, that for the sake of which is the maker’s purpose, that which is from these is the statue itself.

Quinque ergo causae sunt, ut Plato dicit: id ex quo, id a quo, id in quo, id ad quod, id propter quod. Novissime id quod ex his est. Tamquam in statua, quia de hac loqui coepimus, id ex quo aes est, id a quo artifex est, id in quo forma est, quae aptatur illi, id ad quod exemplar est, quod imitatur is, qui facit, id propter quod facientis propositum est, id quod ex istis est, ipsa statua est.

All these the universe too has, as Plato says: a maker – this is the god; that from which it is made – this is matter; the form – this is the disposition and order of the world that we see; the exemplar – namely, that after which the god made this magnitude of a most beautiful work.

Haec omnia mundus quoque, ut ait Plato, habet: facientem: hic deus est. Ex quo fit: haec materia est. Formam: haec est habitus et ordo mundi, quem videmus. Exemplar, scilicet, ad quod deus hanc magnitudinem operis pulcherrimi fecit.

The purpose, for the sake of which he made it. You ask what is the god’s purpose? Goodness. So at least Plato says: "What was the god’s cause for making the world? He is good; the good grudges nothing of any good. So he made it as good as he could." Give your verdict, then, judge, and pronounce who seems to you to speak most truly – not who speaks most truly. For that is as far above us as truth itself.

Propositum, propter quod fecit. Quaeris, quod sit propositum deo? Bonitas. Ita certe Plato ait: Quae deo faciendi mundum fuit causa? Bonus est; bono nulla cuiusquam boni invidia est. Fecit itaque quam optimum potuit. Fer ergo, iudex, sententiam et pronuntia, quis tibi videatur verissimum dicere, non quis verissimum dicat. Id enim tam supra nos est quam ipsa veritas.

This crowd of causes set out by Aristotle and Plato comprehends either too many or too few. For if they judge that whatever, when removed, leaves a thing unable to be effected is a cause of the making, they have said too few. Let them put time among the causes; nothing can be made without time. Let them put place; if there is no place where a thing may come to be, it will not come to be at all. Let them put motion; without it nothing is made or perishes. There is no art without motion, no change.

Haec, quae ab Aristotele et Platone ponitur, turba causarum aut nimium multa aut nimium pauca conprendit. Nam si, quocumque remoto quid effici non potest, id causam iudicant esse faciendi, pauca dixerunt. Ponant inter causas tempus; nihil sine tempore potest fieri. Ponant locum; si non fuerit, ubi fiat aliquid, ne fiet quidem. Ponant motum; nihil sine hoc nec fit nec perit. Nulla sine motu ars, nulla mutatio est.

But we now seek the first and general cause. This must be simple, for matter too is simple. We ask, what is cause? Plainly, reason that makes – that is, the god. For all those things you have brought up are not many and several causes, but hang from one – from that which will make.

Sed nos nunc primam et generalem quaerimus causam. Haec simplex esse debet; nam et materia simplex est. Quaerimus, quid sit causa? Ratio scilicet faciens, id est deus. Ista enim, quaecumque rettulistis, non sunt multae et singulae causae, sed ex una pendent, ex ea, quae faciet.

You say form is a cause? This the artist imposes on the work; it is a part of the cause, not the cause. The exemplar too is not a cause, but a necessary instrument of the cause. The exemplar is necessary to the artist as the chisel is, as the file; without these art cannot proceed. Yet these are not parts of the art, nor causes.

Formam dicis causam esse? Hanc inponit artifex operi; pars causae est, non causa. Exemplar quoque non est causa, sed instrumentum causae necessarium. Sic necessarium est exemplar artifici, quomodo scalprum, quomodo lima; sine his procedere ars non potest. Non tamen hae partes artis aut causae sunt.

"The purpose of the artist," he says, "for the sake of which he approaches the making of something, is a cause." Granting it is a cause, it is not an efficient cause, but a supervening one. And these are innumerable; we ask about the general cause. But it was not said with their usual subtlety, that the whole world and the finished work is a cause. For there is a great difference between the work and the cause of the work.

Propositum, inquit, artificis, propter quod ad faciendum aliquid accedit, causa est. Ut sit causa, non est efficiens causa, sed superveniens. Hae autem innumerabiles sunt; nos de causa generali quaerimus. Illud vero non pro solita ipsis subtilitate dixerunt, totum mundum et consummatum opus causam esse. Multum enim interest inter opus et causam operis.

Either give your verdict, or – what is easier in matters of this kind – deny that it is clear to you, and bid us come back to it. "What pleases you," you say, "in wearing away time among these things, which strip you of no passion, drive off no desire?" I, indeed, treat and handle as more important those things by which the mind is pacified, and I first scrutinize myself, then this universe.

Aut fer sententiam aut, quod facilius in eiusmodi rebus est, nega tibi liquere et nos reverti iube. Quid te, inquis, delectat tempus inter ista conterere, quae tibi nullum affectum eripiunt, nullam cupiditatem abigunt? Ego quidem ut potiora illa ago ac tracto, quibus pacatur animus, et me prius scrutor, deinde hunc mundum.

Not even now do I waste time, as you suppose. For all these things, if they are not chopped up nor torn apart into this useless subtlety, lift and lighten the mind, which, pressed by a heavy burden, longs to be unfolded and to return to the things it once belonged to. For this body is the mind’s weight and punishment; under its pressure it is squeezed, it is in chains, unless philosophy has come and bidden it breathe again at the spectacle of nature and dismissed it from earthly things to the divine. This is its liberty, its roaming; sometimes it withdraws itself from the custody in which it is held and is refreshed in the sky.

Ne nunc quidem tempus, ut existimas, perdo. Ista enim omnia, si non concidantur nec in hanc subtilitatem inutilem distrahantur, attollunt et levant animum, qui gravi sarcina pressus explicari cupit et reverti ad illa, quorum fuit. Nam corpus hoc animi pondus ac poena est; premente illo urgetur, in vinclis est, nisi accessit philosophia et illum respirare rerum naturae spectaculo iussit et a terrenis ad divina dimisit. Haec libertas eius est, haec evagatio; subducit interim se custodiae, in qua tenetur, et caelo reficitur.

Just as the craftsmen of some finer work, which wearies the eyes with strain, if they have a grudging and scant light, go out into the open and in some quarter set aside for the people’s leisure delight their eyes with free daylight; so the mind, cheated in this sad and dark dwelling, whenever it can, seeks the open and rests in the contemplation of nature.

Quemadmodum artifices alicuius rei subtilioris, quae intentione oculos defetigat, si malignum habent et precarium lumen, in publicum prodeunt et in aliqua regione ad populi otium dedicata oculos libera luce delectant; sic animus in hoc tristi et obscuro domicilio elusus, quotiens potest, apertum petit et in rerum naturae contemplatione requiescit.

The wise man and the follower of wisdom cling, indeed, within their body, but with the best part of themselves they are away, and bend their thoughts to lofty things. As though sworn to a soldier’s oath, they count this life a term of service. And he is so formed that he has neither love of life nor hatred of it, and endures mortal things, although he knows that ampler things remain.

Sapiens adsectatorque sapientiae adhaeret quidem in corpore suo, sed optima sui parte abest et cogitationes suas ad sublimia intendit. Velut sacramento rogatus hoc, quod vivit, stipendium putat. Et ita formatus est, ut illi nec amor vitae nec odium sit, patiturque mortalia, quamvis sciat ampliora superesse.

Do you forbid me the inspection of nature, and, drawing me from the whole, drive me back into a part? Shall I not ask what are the beginnings of all things? Who shaped them? Who separated all things sunk in one and rolled together in inert matter? Shall I not ask who is the artist of this world? By what reason so great a magnitude came into law and order? Who gathered the scattered, distinguished the confused, and gave a face to things lying in one shapelessness? Whence is so great a light poured out? Is it fire, or something brighter than fire?

Interdicis mihi inspectione rerum naturae, a toto abductum redigis in partem? Ego non quaeram, quae sint initia universorum? Quis rerum formator? Quis omnia in uno mersa et materia inerti convoluta discreverit? Non quaeram, quis sit istius artifex mundi? Qua ratione tanta magnitudo in legem et ordinem venerit? Quis sparsa collegerit, confusa distinxerit, in una deformitate iacentibus faciem diviserit? Unde lux tanta fundatur? Ignis sit, an aliquid igne lucidius?

Shall I not ask these things? Shall I not know whence I have come down? Whether these things are to be seen by me once, or I must be born often? Where am I to go from here? What seat awaits the soul freed from the laws of human slavery? Do you forbid me to share in the sky – that is, do you bid me live with my head bowed down?

Ego ista non quaeram? Ego nesciam, unde descenderint? Semel haec mihi videnda sint, an saepe nascendum? Quo hinc iturus sim? Quae sedes exspectet animam solutam legibus servitutis humanae? Vetas me caelo interesse, id est iubes me vivere capite demisso?

I am greater, and born for greater things, than to be the slave of my body, which I look on as nothing but a chain thrown about my liberty. This, then, I set against fortune as the thing where she may stop, and I let no wound pass through it to me. Whatever in me can suffer injury is this. In this exposed dwelling a free mind lives.

Maior sum et ad maiora genitus, quam ut mancipium sim mei corporis, quod equidem non aliter aspicio quam vinclum aliquod libertati meae circumdatum. Hoc itaque oppono fortunae, in quo resistat, nec per illud ad me ullum transire vulnus sino. Quicquid in me potest iniuriam pati, hoc est. In hoc obnoxio domicilio animus liber habitat.

Never will this flesh drive me to fear, never to a pretense unworthy of a good man; never will I lie in honor of this little body. When it seems right, I will break off the partnership with it. And even now, while we cling together, we will not be partners on equal terms; the mind will draw all right to itself. Contempt of one’s own body is sure liberty.

Numquam me caro ista conpellet ad metum, numquam ad indignam bono simulationem; numquam in honorem huius corpusculi mentiar. Cum visum erit, distraham cum illo societatem. Et nunc tamen, dum haeremus, non erimus aequis partibus socii; animus ad se omne ius ducet. Contemptus corporis sui certa libertas est.

To return to my point, to this liberty that inspection too, of which we were just speaking, will much contribute. Surely all things consist of matter and of the god. The god governs these things which, poured around him, follow their ruler and leader. But that which makes – which is the god – is more powerful and more precious than matter, which submits to the god.

Ut ad propositum revertar, huic libertati multum conferet et illa, de qua modo loquebamur, inspectio. Nempe universa ex materia et ex deo constant. Deus ista temperat, quae circumfusa rectorem secuntur et ducem. Potentius autem est ac pretiosius, quod facit, quod est deus, quam materia patiens dei.

The place that the god holds in this world, the mind holds in man. What is matter there, is body in us; let the worse, then, serve the better. Let us be brave against chance things. Let us not tremble at injuries, nor wounds, nor chains, nor want. What is death? Either an end or a passage. I neither fear to cease – for it is the same as not to have begun – nor to pass, because nowhere shall I be so cramped. Farewell.

Quem in hoc mundo locum deus obtinet, hunc in homine animus. Quod est illic materia, id in nobis corpus est; serviant ergo deteriora melioribus. Fortes simus adversus fortuita. Non contremescamus iniurias, non vulnera, non vincula, non egestatem. Mors quid est? Aut finis aut transitus. Nec desinere timeo, idem est enim, quod non coepisse, nec transire, quia nusquam tam anguste ero. Vale.

I have seen Claranus, my schoolfellow, after many years. You do not, I think, expect me to add that he is old; but, by Hercules, he is green in mind and vigorous, and wrestling with his poor little body. For nature dealt unfairly and lodged so fine a mind badly; or perhaps she wished to show us this very thing – that the strongest and most blessed genius can lie hidden under any skin. Yet he overcomes all impediments, and from contempt of himself he comes to the contempt of everything else.

Claranum, condiscipulum meum, vidi post multos annos. Non, puto, exspectas, ut adiciam senem, sed mehercules viridem animo ac vigentem et cum corpusculo suo conluctantem. Inique enim se natura gessit et talem animum male conlocavit; aut fortasse voluit hoc ipsum nobis ostendere, posse ingenium fortissimum ac beatissimum sub qualibet cute latere. Vincit tamen omnia inpedimenta et ad cetera contemnenda a contemptu sui venit.

and virtue, too, is the more pleasing when it comes from a fair body.

gratior et pulchro veniens e corpore virtus.

A great man can come out of a hovel; and out of a deformed and lowly little body can come a mind shapely and great. And so nature seems to me to bring some men forth like this for this very purpose: to prove that virtue is born in every place. If she could have produced minds bare, by themselves, she would have done so; as it is she does something greater – she brings forth some men hampered by their bodies, yet for all that breaking through what obstructs them.

Potest ex casa vir magnus exire, potest et ex deformi humilique corpusculo formosus animus ac magnus. Quosdam itaque mihi videtur in hoc tales natura generare, ut adprobet virtutem omni loco nasci. Si posset per se nudos edere animos, fecisset; nunc, quod amplius est, facit; quosdam enim edit corporibus inpeditos, sed nihilominus perrumpentes obstantia.

Claranus seems to me to have been produced as a specimen, that we might know the mind is not made foul by the body’s deformity, but the body is adorned by the mind’s beauty. Yet although we spent very few days together, we had many conversations, which I will draw out little by little and pass on to you.

Claranus mihi videtur in exemplar editus, ut scire possemus non deformitate corporis foedari animum, sed pulchritudine animi corpus ornari. Quamvis autem paucissimos una fecerimus dies, tamen multi nobis sermones fuerunt, quos subinde egeram et ad te permittam.

On the first day this was the question: how goods can be equal, if their standing is threefold. Some, as our school holds, are goods of the first rank – joy, for instance, peace, the safety of one’s country; some of the second, expressed in unhappy material – the endurance of tortures, say, and self-command in grave illness. The first sort we shall wish for ourselves outright; the second, if need be. There are still goods of a third kind – a modest gait, for instance, and a composed and honest expression, and the bearing that befits a man of judgment.

Hoc primo die quaesitum est: quomodo possint paria bona esse, si triplex eorum condicio est. Quaedam, ut nostris videtur, prima bona sunt, tamquam gaudium, pax, salus patriae; quaedam secunda, in materia infelici expressa, tamquam tormentorum patientia et in morbo gravi temperantia. Illa bona derecto optabimus nobis, haec, si necesse erit. Sunt adhuc tertia, tamquam modestus incessus et conpositus ac probus voltus et conveniens prudenti viro gestus.

How can these be equal among themselves, when some are to be wished for and others to be shunned? If we want to mark them off, let us go back to the first good and consider what it is like: a mind that looks upon the truth, skilled in what to flee and what to seek, setting prices on things not by opinion but by nature, inserting itself into the whole world and sending its contemplation into all the world’s doings, intent alike on thought and on action, great and forceful in equal measure, unconquered by the harsh and the alluring alike, submitting to neither kind of fortune, towering above all that befalls and happens, most beautiful, most ordered in grace as in strength, sound and dry, unshaken, undaunted, whom no force can break, whom chance things neither lift up nor cast down – a mind such as this is virtue.

Quomodo ista inter se paria esse possunt, cum alia optanda sint, alia aversanda? Si volumus ista distinguere, ad primum bonum revertamur et consideremus id quale sit: animus intuens vera, peritus fugiendorum ac petendorum, non ex opinione, sed ex natura pretia rebus inponens, toti se inserens mundo et in omnes eius actus contemplationem suam mittens, cogitationibus actionibusque intentus, ex aequo magnus ac vehemens, asperis blandisque pariter invictus, neutri se fortunae summittens, supra omnia quae contingunt acciduntque eminens, pulcherrimus, ordinatissimus cum decore tum viribus, sanus ac siccus, inperturbatus, intrepidus, quem nulla vis frangat, quem nec adtollant fortuita nec deprimant; talis animus virtus est.

This is its face, if it should come under a single view and show itself all at once. But it has many forms. They are unfolded according to the variety of life and according to its actions; yet virtue itself becomes neither less nor greater. For the highest good cannot decrease, nor is virtue permitted to go backward; rather it is turned into one quality after another, shaped to the cast of the things it is about to do.

Haec eius est facies, si sub unum veniat aspectum et semel tota se ostendat. Ceterum multae eius species sunt. Pro vitae varietate et pro actionibus explicantur; nec minor fit aut maior ipsa. Decrescere enim summum bonum non potest nec virtuti ire retro licet; sed in alias atque alias qualitates convertitur ad rerum, quas actura est, habitum figurata.

Whatever it has touched, it brings into a likeness of itself and dyes; actions, friendships, sometimes whole households, which it has entered and set in order, it graces. Whatever it has handled, it makes lovely, conspicuous, wonderful. And so its force and greatness cannot rise higher, since there is no increase for what is greatest. You will find nothing straighter than the straight, no more than truer than the true, or more temperate than the temperate.

Quidquid attigit, in similitudinem sui adducit et tinguit; actiones, amicitias, interdum domos totas, quas intravit disposuitque, condecorat. Quidquid tractavit, id amabile, conspicuum, mirabile facit. Itaque vis eius et magnitudo ultra non potest surgere, quando incrementum maximo non est. Nihil invenies rectius recto, non magis quam verius vero, quam temperato temperatius.

Every virtue is without measure; measure is a fixed standard. Constancy has nowhere to advance, no more than confidence, or truth, or fidelity. What can be added to the perfect? Nothing – or it was not perfect, to which the addition was made. Therefore nothing can be added to virtue either, for if anything can be added to it, it was wanting. The honorable, too, admits no increase; for it is honorable on account of those very things I have recounted. What then? Do you not think that the seemly and the just and the lawful are of the same form, bounded by fixed limits? To be able to grow is the mark of an imperfect thing.

Omnis sine modo est virtus; modo certa mensura est. Constantia non habet, quo procedat, non magis quam fiducia aut veritas aut fides. Quid accedere perfecto potest? Nihil, aut perfectum non erat, cui accessit. Ergo ne virtuti quidem, cui si quid adici potest, defuit. Honestum quoque nullam accessionem recipit; honestum est enim propter ista, quae rettuli. Quid porro? Decorum et iustum et legitimum non eiusdem esse formae putas, certis terminis conprensum? Crescere posse inperfectae rei signum est.

Every good falls under the same laws: private advantage is joined to public, as surely, by Hercules, as the praiseworthy is inseparable from the sought-after. Therefore the virtues are equal among themselves, and so are the works of virtue, and all the men to whom those virtues have come.

Bonum omne in easdem cadit leges; iuncta est privata et publica utilitas, tam mehercules quam inseparabile est laudandum petendumque. Ergo virtutes inter se pares sunt et opera virtutis et omnes homines, quibus illae configere.

But the virtues of plants and animals, being mortal, are also frail and perishable and uncertain. They flare up and subside, and for that reason are not valued at the same price; upon human virtues a single rule is laid down. For right reason is one and simple. Nothing is more divine than the divine, more heavenly than the heavenly.

Satorum vero animaliumque virtutes cum mortales sint, fragiles quoque caducaeque sunt et incertae. Exibunt residuntque et ideo non eodem pretio aestimantur; una inducitur humanis virtutibus regula. Una enim est ratio recta simplexque. Nihil est divino divinius, caelesti caelestius.

Mortal things are diminished, fall, wear away, grow, are drained, are filled. And so among them, in a lot so uncertain, there is inequality; of divine things the nature is one. But reason is nothing else than a portion of the divine spirit sunk into a human body. If reason is divine, and no good is without reason, then every good is divine. Further, among divine things there is no distinction; therefore none among goods either. Equal, then, are joy and the brave and stubborn endurance of tortures; for in both there is the same greatness of mind, in the one relaxed and glad, in the other combative and tense.

Mortalia minuuntur, cadunt, deteruntur, crescunt, exhauriuntur, inplentur. Itaque illis in tam incerta sorte inaequalitas est; divinorum una natura est. Ratio autem nihil aliud est quam in corpus humanum pars divini spiritus mersa. Si ratio divina est, nullum autem bonum sine ratione est, bonum omne divinum est. Nullum porro inter divina discrimen est; ergo nee nec inter bona. Paria itaque sunt et gaudium et fortis atque obstinata tormentorum perpessio; in utroque enim eadem est animi magnitudo, in altero remissa et laeta, in altera pugnax et intenta.

What? Do you not think the virtue of the man who bravely storms the enemy’s walls equal to that of the man who most patiently endures a siege? Great is Scipio, who shuts in Numantia and crushes it and forces those unconquered hands to turn against their own destruction; great, too, is the spirit of the besieged, who knows that the man to whom death lies open is not cheated, and breathes his last in the embrace of liberty. In the same way the rest are also equal among themselves: tranquility, simplicity, generosity, constancy, evenness of mind, endurance. For beneath all these lies one virtue, which makes the mind upright and not to be bent aside.

Quid? Tu non putas parem esse virtutem eius, qui fortiter hostium moenia expugnat, et eius, qui obsidionem patientissime sustinet? Magnus Scipio, qui Numantiam cludit et conprimit cogitque invictas manus in exitium ipsas suum verti; magnus ille obsessorum animus, qui scit non esse elusam, cui mors aperta est, et in conplexu complexu libertatis expirat. Aeque reliqua quoque inter se paria sunt, tranquillitas, simplicitas, liberalitas, constantia, aequanimitas, tolerantia. Omnibus enim istis una virtus subest, quae animum rectum et indeclinabilem praestat.

What then? Is there no difference between joy and the unbending endurance of pains? None, as far as the virtues themselves go; but very much between the things in which each virtue is shown. For in the one there is a natural slackening and ease of mind, in the other a pain contrary to nature. And so these are middle things, which admit the widest interval between them; the virtue in both is equal.

Quid ergo? Nihil interest inter gaudium et dolorum inflexibilem patientiam? Nihil, quantum ad ipsas virtutes; plurimum inter illa, in quibus virtus utraque ostenditur. In altero enim naturalis est animi remissio ae laxitas, in altero contra naturam dolor. Itaque media sunt haec, quae plurimum intervalli recipiunt; virtus in utroque par est.

Material does not change virtue; hard and difficult material does not make it worse, nor glad and pleasant material better. It must, then, be equal. For in both, what is done is done equally rightly, equally wisely, equally honorably. Therefore the goods are equal, beyond which neither can this man bear himself better in his joy, nor that man better in his torments. And two things than which nothing can be done better are equal.

Virtutem materia non mutat; nec peiorem facit dura ac difficilis, nec meliorem hilaris et laeta. Necesse est ergo par sit. In utraque enim quod fit, aeque recte fit, aeque prudenter, aeque honeste. Ergo aequalia sunt bona, ultra quae nec hic potest se melius in hoc gaudio gerere nec ille melius in illis cruciatibus. Duo autem, quibus nihil fieri melius potest, paria sunt.

For if the things placed outside virtue can either diminish it or increase it, then the one good – the honorable – ceases to be a good. If you grant this, all the honorable perishes. Why? I will tell you: because nothing is honorable that is done unwillingly, that is done under compulsion. Everything honorable is voluntary. Mix into it sloth, complaint, evasion, fear; it has lost what it holds best in itself – to be pleased with itself. What is not free cannot be honorable; for what is afraid is a slave.

Nam si, quae extra virtutem posita sunt, aut minuere illam aut augere possunt, desinit unum bonum esse, quod honestum. Si hoc concesseris, omne honestum perit. Quare? Dicam: quia nihil honestum est, quod ab invito, quod coactum fit. Omne honestum voluntarium est. Admisce illi pigritiam, querellam, tergiversationem, metum; quod habet in se optimum, perdidit, sibi placere. Non potest honestum esse, quod non est liberum; nam quod timet, servit.

Everything honorable is free of care, is tranquil; if it refuses anything, if it bewails, if it judges a thing an evil, it has taken in a disturbance and is tossed about in great discord. For on one side the appearance of the right calls it, on the other the suspicion of evil drags it back. And so the man who is about to do something honorably, whatever stands in his way, even if he thinks it inconvenient, let him not think it an evil; let him will it, let him do it gladly. Everything honorable is unbidden and uncompelled, sincere and mixed with no evil.

Honestum omne securum est, tranquillum est; si recusat aliquid, si conplorat, si malum iudicat, perturbationem recepit et in magna discordia volutatur. Hinc enim species recti vocat, illinc suspicio mali retrahit. Itaque qui honeste aliquid facturus est, quicquid opponitur, id etiam si incommodum putat, malum non putet, velit, libens faciat. Omne honestum iniussum incoactumque est, sincerum et nulli malo mixtum.

I know what may be answered to me at this point: "Are you trying to persuade us of this – that there is no difference whether a man is in joy or lies on the rack and wearies out his torturer?" I might answer: Epicurus too says that the wise man, even if he be roasted in the bull of Phalaris, will cry out: "It is sweet, and nothing to me." Why do you marvel, if I call equal the goods of the one man reclining at a banquet and of the other standing most bravely amid tortures, when Epicurus says something more incredible – that to be roasted is sweet?

Scio, quid mihi responderi hoc loco possit: hoc nobis persuadere conaris, nihil interesse, utrum aliquis in gaudio sit an in eculeo iaceat ac tortorem suum lasset? Poteram respondere: Epicurus quoque ait sapientem, si in Phalaridis tauro peruratur, exclamaturum: dulce est et ad me nihil pertinet. Quid miraris, si ego paria bona dico alterius in convivio iacentis, alterius inter tormenta fortissime stantis, cum quod incredibilius est dicat Epicurus, dulce esse torreri?

But this is my answer: there is the greatest difference between joy and pain; if a choice be asked, I will seek the one, I will shun the other. The first is according to nature, the second against it. As long as they are assessed thus, they stand apart from each other by a great distance; but when it comes to virtue, both are equal – the virtue that goes forward through gladness and that which goes through griefs.

Sed hoc respondeo, plurimum interesse inter gaudium et dolorem; si quaeratur electio, alterum petam, alterum vitabo. Illud secundum naturam est, hoc contra. Quamdiu sic aestimantur, magno inter se dissident spatio; cum ad virtutem ventum est, utraque par est et quae per laeta procedit et quae per tristia.

Vexation and pain and whatever else of inconvenience there is carries no weight; for it is overwhelmed by virtue. As the brightness of the sun obscures the lesser lights, so virtue by its greatness crushes and presses down pains, troubles, injuries; and wherever it has shone, there whatever appears without it is extinguished; nor do inconveniences keep any portion of their force, when they have fallen upon virtue, any more than a rain-cloud at sea.

Nullum habet momentum vexatio et dolor et quicquid aliud incommodi est; virtute enim obruitur. Quemadmodum minuta lumina claritas solis obscurat, sic dolores, molestias, iniurias virtus magnitudine sua elidit atque opprimit et quocumque adfulsit, ibi quicquid sine illa apparet, extinguitur; nec magis ullam portionem habent incommoda, cum in virtutem inciderunt, quam in mari nimbus.

That you may know this is so: to everything honorable the good man will run without any hesitation; though the executioner stand there, though the torturer and the fire stand there, he will persist, and will look not at what he is to suffer but at what he is to do, and will entrust himself to the honorable deed as to a good man; he will judge it useful to himself, safe, prosperous. An honorable thing, even though sad and harsh, will hold the same place with him that a good man holds though poor, or an exile, or pale with sickness.

Hoc ut scias ita esse, ad omne pulchrum vir bonus sine ulla cunctatione procurret; stet illic licet carnifex, stet tortor atque ignis, perseverabit nec quid passurus, sed quid facturus sit, aspiciet, et se honestae rei tamquam bono viro credet; utilem illam sibi iudicabit, tutam, prosperam. Eundem locum habebit apud illum honesta res, sed tristis atque aspera, quem vir bonus pauper aut exul ac pallidus.

Come now, set on one side a good man overflowing with riches, on the other one having nothing but having all things in himself; each will be equally a good man, even if he enjoy unequal fortune. The judgment on things is the same, as I have said, as on men: virtue is equally praiseworthy when set in a body strong and free as in one sickly and bound.

Agedum pone ex alia parte virum bonum divitiis abundantem, ex altera nihil habentem, sed in se omnia; uterque aeque vir bonus erit, etiam si fortuna dispari utetur. Idem, ut dixi, in rebus iudicium est, quod in hominibus: aeque laudabilis virtus est in corpore valido ac libero posita quam in morbido ac vincto.

Therefore you will praise your own virtue no more if fortune has furnished it with a body whole than if maimed in some part; otherwise this will be to value the master by the condition of his slaves. For all those things over which chance exercises its dominion are slaves – money and body and honors – weak, fluid, mortal, of uncertain tenure. The works of virtue, on the other hand, are free and unconquered; they are not for that reason more to be sought after, if fortune treats them more kindly, nor less, if they are pressed by some unfairness of circumstance.

Ergo tuam quoque virtutem non magis laudabis, si corpus illi tuum integrum fortuna praestiterit quam si ex aliqua parte mutilatum; alioqui hoc erit ex servorum habitu dominum aestimare. Omnia enim ista, in quae dominium casus exercet, serva sunt, pecunia et corpus et honores, inbecilla, fluida, mortalia, possessionis incertae. Illa rursus libera et invicta opera virtutis, quae non ideo magis adpetenda sunt, si benignius a fortuna tractantur, nec minus, si aliqua iniquitate rerum premuntur.

What friendship is in the case of men, desire is in the case of things. You would not, I think, love a good man more for being rich than for being poor, nor more for being robust and brawny than slender and weak in body; therefore you will not desire or love a thing more for being glad and untroubled than for being torn and laborious.

Quod amicitia in hominibus est, hoc in rebus adpetitio. Non, puto, magis amares virum bonum locupletem quam pauperem, nec robustum et lacertosum quam gracilem et languidi corporis; ergo ne rem quidem magis adpetes aut amabis hilarem ac pacatam quam distractam et operosam.

Or, if this be so, you will love, of two equally good men, the sleek and oiled one more than the dusty and unkempt; then you will come at last to this, that you love more the man whole in all his limbs and unhurt than the crippled or one-eyed. Little by little your fastidiousness will go so far that, of two equally just and prudent men, you will prefer the long-haired and curled. Where the virtue in both is equal, the inequality of the other things does not show itself. For all those other things are not parts, but additions.

Aut si hoc est, magis diliges ex duobus aeque bonis viris nitidum et unctum quam pulverulentum et horrentem. Deinde hoc usque pervenies, ut magis diligas integrum omnibus membris et inlaesum quam debilem aut luscum. Paulatim fastidium tuum illo usque procedet, ut ex duobus aeque iustis ac prudentibus comatum et crispulum malis. Ubi par in utroque virtus est, non conparet aliarum rerum inaequalitas. Omnia enim alia non partes, sed accessiones sunt.

Does anyone hold so unfair a reckoning among his own as to love a healthy son more than a sick one, or the tall and lofty more than the short or middling? Wild beasts do not distinguish among their young, and lay themselves down to feed all alike; birds share out their food evenly. Ulysses hastens to the rocks of his own Ithaca just as Agamemnon hastens to the noble walls of Mycenae. For no one loves his country because it is great, but because it is his own.

Num quis tam iniquam censuram inter suos agit, ut sanum filium quam aegrum magis diligat, procerumve et excelsum quam brevem aut modicum? Fetus suos non distinguunt ferae et se in alimentum pariter omnium sternunt; aves ex aequo partiuntur cibos. Vlixes ad Ithacae suae saxa sic properat, quemadmodum Agamemnon ad Mycenarum nobiles muros. Nemo enim patriam quia magna est amat, sed quia sua.

To what does this tend? That you may know virtue looks upon all its works as its own offspring with the same eyes, and indulges all alike – and indeed the toiling ones more lavishly – since even a parent’s love inclines the more toward those it pities. Virtue too does not love the more those works of its own that it sees afflicted and pressed, but, after the manner of good parents, embraces and cherishes them the more.

Quorsus haec pertinent? Ut scias virtutem omnia opera velut fetus suos isdem oculis intueri, aeque indulgere omnibus et quidem inpensius laborantibus, quoniam quidem etiam parentium amor magis in ea, quorum miseretur, inclinat. Virtus quoque opera sua, quae videt adfici et premi, non magis amat, sed parentium bonorum more magis conplectitur ac fovet.

Why is no good greater than another? Because there is nothing fitter than the fitting, nothing flatter than the flat. You cannot say that this thing is more equal to something than that; therefore neither is anything more honorable than the honorable.

Quare non est ullum bonum altero maius? Quia non est quicquam apto aptius, quia plano nihil est planius. Non potes dicere hoc magis par esse alicui quam illud; ergo nec honesto honestius quicquam est.

And if the nature of all the virtues is equal, the three kinds of goods are on a level. I mean this: it is on a level to rejoice with measure and to grieve with measure. That gladness does not surpass this firmness of mind that swallows down its groans beneath the torturer; the former goods are to be wished for, the latter to be wondered at, yet both are none the less equal, because whatever inconvenience there is, is covered over by the force of a good so much greater.

Quod si par omnium virtutum natura est, tria genera bonorum in aequo sunt. Ita dico: in aequo est moderate gaudere et moderate dolere. Laetitia illa non vincit hanc animi firmitatem sub tortore gemitus devorantem; illa bona optabilia, haec mirabilia sunt, utraque nihilominus paria, quia quidquid incommodi est, vi tanto maioris boni tegitur.

Whoever judges these unequal turns his eyes away from the virtues themselves and looks around at the externals. True goods weigh the same, lie open the same. Those false ones have much that is empty. And so things showy and great to those who view them from in front, when they are called back to the scale, deceive.

Quisquis haec inparia iudicat, ab ipsis virtutibus avertit oculos et exteriore circumspicit; bona vera idem pendent, idem patent. Illa falsa multum habent vani. Itaque speciosa et magna contra visentibus, cum ad pondus revocata sunt, fallunt.

It is so, my Lucilius: whatever true reason commends is solid and eternal; it strengthens the mind and lifts it up, to be forever on high. But those things that are praised rashly, and are goods by the verdict of the crowd, puff up with empty things those they make glad; and again, those that are dreaded as evils strike the mind with terror and drive it about, just as animals are driven by the appearance of danger.

Ita est, mi Lucili; quicquid vera ratio commendat, solidum et aeternum est, firmat animum attollitque semper futurum in excelso; illa quae temere laudantur et vulgi sententia bona sunt, inflant inanibus laetos. Rursus ea, quae Minentur tamquam mala. iniciunt formidinem mentibus et illas non aliter quam animalia species periculi agitant.

Each thing, then, without cause both expands the mind and bites it; neither is the one worthy of joy nor the other of fear. Reason alone is unchangeable and holds fast to its judgment. For it does not serve the senses, but commands them. Reason is equal to reason, as the straight to the straight; therefore virtue too is equal to virtue. Virtue is nothing other than right reason. All the virtues are reasonings. They are reasonings, if they are right. If they are right, they are also equal.

Utraque ergo res sine causa animum et diffundit et mordet; nec illa gaudio nec haec metu digna est. Sola ratio inmutabilis et iudicii tenax est. Non enim servit, sed imperat sensibus. Ratio rationi par est, sicut rectum recto; ergo et virtus virtuti. Virtus non aliud quam recta ratio est. Omnes virtutes rationes sunt. Rationes sunt, si rectae sunt. Si rectae sunt, et pares sunt.

As reason is, so too are the actions; therefore all are equal. For since they are like reason, they are also like one another. But I say the actions are equal among themselves in so far as they are honorable and right. For the rest, they will have great differences as the material varies, which is now broader, now narrower, now illustrious, now obscure, now reaching to many, now to few. Yet in all of them that which is best is equal: they are honorable.

Qualis ratio est, tales et actiones sunt; ergo omnes pares sunt. Nam cum similes rationi sint, similes et inter se sunt. Pares autem actiones inter se esse dico, qua honestae rectaeque sunt. Ceterum magna habebunt discrimina variante materia, quae modo latior est, modo angustior, modo inlustris, modo ignobilis, modo ad multos pertinens, modo ad paucos. In omnibus tamen istis id, quod optimum est, par est; honestae sunt.

Just as all good men are equal, in so far as they are good. But they have differences of age: one is older, another younger; of body: one is handsome, another deformed; of fortune: that one is rich, this poor, that one favored, powerful, known to cities and peoples, this one unknown to most and obscure. But through that whereby they are good, they are equal.

Tamquam viri boni omnes pares sunt, qua boni sunt. Sed habent differentias aetatis: alius senior est, alius iuvenior; habent corporis: alius formosus, alius deformis est; habent fortunae: ille dives, hic pauper est, ille gratiosus, potens, urbibus notus et populis, hic ignotus plerisque et obscurus. Sed per illud, quo boni sunt, pares sunt.

The senses do not judge of goods and evils; what is useful, what useless, they do not know. They cannot pass sentence unless they are brought into the present case. They are neither provident of the future nor mindful of the past; what is consequent they do not know. Yet from this the order and seat of things is woven together, and the unity of a life that will go forward by the straight road. Reason, then, is the arbiter of goods and evils; what is foreign and external it holds as cheap, and the things that are neither goods nor evils it judges the slightest and lightest of additions. For to it every good is in the mind.

De bonis ac malis sensus non iudicat; quid utile sit, quid inutile, ignorat. Non potest ferre sententiam, nisi in rem praesentem perductus est. Nec futuri providus est nec praeteriti memor; quid sit consequens, nescit. Ex hoc autem rerum ordo sedesque contexitur et unitas vitae per rectum itura. Ratio ergo arbitra est bonorum ac malorum; aliena et externa pro vilibus habet et ea, quae neque bona sunt neque mala, accessiones minimas ac levissimas iudicat. Omne enim illi bonum in animo est.

For the rest, it reckons some goods of the first rank, to which it comes of set purpose – victory, for instance, good children, the safety of one’s country. Some of the second, which appear only in adversity – to bear, for example, with even mind a great illness, exile. Some middle, which are no more according to nature than against nature – to walk prudently, say, to sit composedly. For to sit is no less according to nature than to stand or to walk.

Ceterum bona quaedam prima existimat, ad quae ex proposito venit, tamquam victoriam, bonos liberos, salutem patriae. Quaedam secunda, quae non apparent nisi in rebus adversis, tamquam aequo animo pati morbum magnum, exilium. Quaedam media, quae nihilo magis secundum naturam sunt quam contra naturam, tamquam prudenter ambulare, conposite sedere. Non enim minus secundum naturam est sedere quam stare aut ambulare.

Those two higher goods are different. For the first are according to nature: to rejoice in the devotion of one’s children, in the safety of one’s country. The second are against nature: bravely to stand against tortures, and to endure thirst while disease burns the inward parts.

Duo illa bona superiora diversa sunt. Prima enim secundum naturam sunt: gaudere liberorum pietate, patriae incolumitate. Secunda contra naturam sunt: fortiter opstare tormentis et sitim perpeti morbo urente praecordia.

What then? Is anything against nature a good? By no means; but that in which the good arises is sometimes against nature. For to be wounded, and to waste away with fire set beneath, and to be afflicted by ill health, is against nature; but to keep the mind untiring amid these things is according to nature.

Quid ergo? Aliquid contra naturam bonum est? Minime; sed id aliquando contra naturam est, in quo bonum illud existit. Vulnerari enim et subiecto igne tabescere et adversa valetudine adfligi contra naturam est, sed inter ista servare animum infatigabilem secundum naturam est.

And, to put briefly what I mean: the material of a good is sometimes against nature, the good never, since no good is without reason, and reason follows nature. What, then, is reason? The imitation of nature. What is man’s highest good? To bear oneself according to nature’s will.

Et ut quod volo exprimam breviter, materia boni aliquando contra naturam est, bonum numquam, quoniam bonum sine ratione nullum est, sequitur autem ratio naturam. Quid est ergo ratio? Naturae imitatio. Quod est summum hominis bonum? Ex naturae voluntate se gerere.

"There is no doubt," says my opponent, "that a peace never assailed is happier than one restored with much blood. There is no doubt," he says, "that unshaken health is a happier thing than health led back into safety, by a kind of force and endurance, out of grave illnesses that threatened the worst. In the same way there will be no doubt that joy is a greater good than a mind that braces itself to endure the torments of wounds or of fires."

Non est inquit dubium, quin felicior pax sit numquam lacessita quam multo reparata sanguine. Non est dubium inquit quin felicior res sit inconcussa valetudo quam ex gravibus morbis et extrema minitantibus in tutum vi quadam et patientia educta. Eodem modo non erit dubium, quin maius bonum sit gaudium quam obnixus animus ad perpetiendos cruciatus vulnerum aut ignium.

By no means. For those things that are matters of chance admit the greatest difference; they are assessed by the advantage of those who take them. But of goods the one aim is to consent to nature; this is equal in all. When we follow someone’s motion in the senate, it cannot be said: that man assents more than that one; by all the same vote is reached. The same I say of the virtues: all assent to nature. The same I say of goods: all assent to nature.

Minime. Illa enim, quae fortuita sunt, plurimum discriminis recipiunt; aestimantur enim utilitate sumentium. Bonorum unum propositum est consentire naturae; hoc in omnibus par est. Cum alicuius in senatu sententiam sequimur, non potest dici: ille magis adsentitur quam ille; ab omnibus in eandem sententiam itur. Idem de virtutibus dico: omnes naturae adsentiuntur. Idem de bonis dico: omnia naturae adsentiuntur.

One man died a youth, another an old man, someone besides these an infant, to whom nothing more fell than to glimpse life. All these were equally mortal, even if death allowed the life of some to go further on, cut off that of others in the very flower, and broke off in others their very beginnings.

Alter adulescens decessit, alter senex, aliquis praeter hos infans, cui nihil amplius contigit quam prospicere vitam. Omnes hi aeque fuere mortales, etiam si mors aliorum longius vitam passa est procedere, aliorum in medio flore praecidit, aliorum interrupit ipsa principia.

One man was released in the middle of dinner. Another’s death was continuous with his sleep. Someone was extinguished in the act of love. Against these I set men run through with the sword, or done to death by the bite of serpents, or crushed by a falling ruin, or wrenched piecemeal by the long contraction of the sinews. Of some the end may be called better, of some worse; but the death of all is equal. The ways by which they leap down are diverse; that into which they leap is one. No death is greater or less; for it has in all the same measure – to have ended life.

Alius inter cenandum solutus est. Alterius continuata mors somno est. Aliquem concubitus extinxit. His oppono ferro transfossos aut exanimatos serpentium morsu aut fractos ruina aut per longam nervorum contractionem extortos minutatim. Aliquorum melior dici, aliquorum peior potest exitus; mors quidem omnium par est. Per quae desiliunt, diversa sunt; in quod desiliunt, unum est. Mors nulla maior aut minor est; habet enim eundem in omnibus modum, finisse vitam.

The same I say to you of goods: this good is among unmixed pleasures, that among sad and bitter things. The one governed the indulgence of fortune, the other mastered its violence. Each is equally a good, although the one went by a level and soft road, the other by a rough one. The end of all is the same: they are goods, they are to be praised, they accompany virtue and reason; virtue makes equal among themselves whatever it acknowledges.

Idem tibi de bonis dico: hoc bonum inter meras voluptates est, hoc inter tristia et acerba. Illud fortunae indulgentiam rexit, hoc violentiam domuit. Utrumque aeque bonum est, quamvis illud plana et molli via ierit, hoc aspera. Idem finis omnium est: bona sunt, laudanda sunt, virtutem rationemque comitantur; virtus aequat inter se, quicquid agnoscit.

Nor is there reason for you to wonder at this among our tenets; in Epicurus too there are two goods, out of which that highest and blessed state is composed – that the body be without pain, the mind without disturbance. These goods do not grow, if they are full. For to what will that grow which is full? The body lacks pain; what can be added to this freedom from suffering? The mind is at one with itself and calm; what can be added to this tranquility?

Nec est, quare hoc inter nostra placita mireris; apud Epicurum duo bona sunt, ex quibus summum illud beatumque conponitur, ut corpus sine dolore sit, animus sine perturbatione. Haec bona non crescunt, si plena sunt. Quo enim crescet, quod plenum est? Dolore corpus caret; quid ad hanc accedere indolentiam potest? Animus constat sibi et placidus est; quid accedere ad hanc tranquillitatem potest?

As the clearness of the sky, purged to the purest brightness, admits no further radiance, so the state of the man who tends body and mind and weaves his good out of both is perfect, and he finds the sum of his prayer, if there is no fever in the mind and no pain in the body. If any allurements from without befall, they do not increase the highest good, but, so to speak, season and delight it. For that absolute good of human nature is content with the peace of body and mind.

Quemadmodum serenitas caeli non recipit maiorem adhuc claritatem in sincerissimum nitorem repurgata, sic hominis corpus animumque curantis et bonum suum ex utroque nectentis perfectus est status et summam voti sui invenit, si nec aestus animo est nec dolor corpori. Si qua extra blandimenta contingunt, non augent summum bonum, sed ut ita dicam, condiunt et oblectant. Absolutum enim illud humanae naturae bonum corporis et animi pace contentum est.

I will give you, even now, in Epicurus a division of goods most like this of ours. For there are some things with him that he would rather befell him – a rest of the body free from every inconvenience, and a relaxation of the mind rejoicing in the contemplation of its own goods. There are others which, though he would not have them happen, he nonetheless praises and approves – such as that endurance of ill health and the gravest pains, which I was speaking of a little before, in which Epicurus was on that last and most fortunate day of his. For he says that he bears the torments of the bladder and of an ulcerated belly, admitting no further increase of pain, yet that for him the day was nonetheless a blessed one. But no one can spend a blessed day unless he is in the highest good.

Dabo apud Epicurum tibi etiamnunc simillimam huic nostrae divisionem bonorum. Alia enim sunt apud illum, quae malit contingere sibi, ut corporis quietem ab omni incommodo liberam et animi remissionem bonorum suorum contemplatione gaudentis. Alia sunt, quae quamvis nolit accidere, nihilominus laudat et conprobat, tamquam illam, quam paulo ante dicebam, malae valetudinis et dolorum gravissimorum perpessionem, in qua Epicurus fuit illo summo ac fortunatissimo die suo. Ait enim se vesicae et exul erati ventris tormenta tolerare ulteriorem doloris accessionem non recipientia, esse nihilominus sibi illum beatum diem. Beatum autem agere, nisi qui est in summo bono, non potest.

Therefore in Epicurus too there are these goods, which you would rather not experience, but which, because circumstance has so brought it, are to be embraced and praised and set on a level with the highest. It cannot be said that this is not equal to the greatest goods – a good that set the close upon a blessed life, to which Epicurus with his last breath gave thanks.

Ergo et apud Epicurum sunt haec bona, quae malles non experiri, sed quia ita res tulit, et amplexanda et laudanda et exaequanda summis sunt. Non potest dici, hoc non esse par maximis bonum, quod beatae vitae clausulam inposuit, cui Epicurus extrema voce gratias egit.

Permit me, Lucilius, best of men, to say something rather bold: if any goods could be greater than others, I should have preferred these that seem sad to those soft and indulgent ones; I should have called these the greater. For it is a greater thing to break through difficulties than to govern prosperity.

Permitte mihi, Lucili virorum optime, aliquid audacius dicere: si ulla bona maiora esse aliis possent, haec ego, quae tristia videntur, mollibus illis et debeatis praetulissem, haec maiora dixissem. Maius est enim difficilia perfringere quam laeta moderari.

By the same reason it comes about, I know, that a man bears good fortune well and calamity bravely. He can be equally brave who has kept watch untroubled before the rampart while no enemy attempted the camp, and he who, his hamstrings cut, has caught himself on his knees and has not let go his arms. "Bravo for your valor!" is said to those returning bloodied from the battle line. And so I should praise the more these goods that are tried and brave and have wrestled with fortune.

Eadem ratione fit, scio, ut aliquis felicitatem bene et ut calamitatem fortiter ferat. Aeque esse fortis potest, qui pro vallo securus excubuit nullis hostibus castra temptantibus et qui succisis poplitibus in genua se excepit nec arma dimisit; macte virtute esto sanguinolentis ex acie redeuntibus dicitur. Itaque haec magis laudaverim bona exercita et fortia et cum fortuna rixata.

Should I doubt that I praise more that maimed and shriveled hand of Mucius than the sound hand of any most valiant man? He stood, a despiser of the enemy and of the flames, and watched his own hand dripping away on the enemy’s brazier, until Porsenna, whose punishment he was abetting, grew envious of his glory and ordered the fire snatched away against his will.

Ego dubitem, quin magis laudem truncam illam et retorridam manum Mucii quam cuiuslibet fortissimi salvam? Stetit hostium flammarumque contemptor et manum suam in hostili foculo destillantem perspectavit, donec Porsenna, cuius poenae favebat, gloriae invidit et ignem invito eripi iussit.

Why should I not number this good among those of the first rank, and think it as much greater than those secure and untried by fortune as it is rarer to have conquered the enemy with a hand lost than with one armed? "What then," you say, "will you wish this good for yourself?" Why not? For unless a man can also wish for it, he cannot do it.

Hoc bonum quidni inter prima numerem tantoque maius putem quam illa secura et intemptata fortunae, quanto rarius est hostem amissa manu vicisse quam armata? Quid ergo? inquis, hoc bonum tibi optabis? Quidni? Hoc enim nisi qui potest et optare, non potest facere.

Or should I rather wish to hold out my joints to be kneaded by my catamites? that some little woman, or someone turned from a man into a little woman, should draw out my dainty fingers? Why should I not think Mucius the more fortunate, in that he handled the fire as though he had lent that hand to the man who handled it? He set right whatever he had erred; he finished the war unarmed and maimed, and with that stump of a hand conquered two kings. Farewell.

An potius optem, ut malaxandos articulos exoletis meis porrigam? Ut muliercula aut aliquis in mulierculam ex viro versus digitulos meos ducat? Quidni ego feliciorem putem Mucium, quod sic tractavit ignem, quasi illam manum tractatori praestitisset? In integrum restituit quidquid erraverat; confecit bellum inermis ac mancus et illa manu trunca reges duos vicit. Vale.

To begin with common matters: spring has begun to open, but, already inclining toward summer, when it ought to be warm, it has grown only lukewarm, and there is as yet no trusting it. For often it rolls back into winter. Do you wish to know how doubtful it still is? I do not yet trust myself to true cold water; even now I break the edge of its chill. "This," you say, "is to endure neither hot nor cold." So it is, my Lucilius; my years by now are content with their own cold. They are scarcely thawed in midsummer.

Ut a communibus initium faciam, ver aperire se coepit, sed iam inclinatura in aestatem, quo tempore calere debebat, intepuit nec adhuc illi fides est. Saepe enim in hiemem revolvitur. Vis scire, quam dubium adhuc sit? Nondum me committo frigidae verae, adhuc rigorem eius infringo. Hoc est, inquis, nec calidum nec frigidum pati. Ita est, mi Lucili; iam aetas mea contenta est suo frigore. Vix media regelatur aestate.

And so the greater part of the day is passed in wraps. I give thanks to old age for having fastened me to my little couch. Why should I not thank it on this score? Whatever I ought not to want, I cannot. Most of my conversation is with my little books. Whenever your letters have come in, I seem to be with you, and I am so affected in mind as though I were not writing back to you but answering you. And so about this too, which you ask, I will, as it were, talk it over with you, and we will examine together what it is.

Itaque maior pars in vestimentis degitur. Ago gratias senectuti, quod me lectulo adfixit. Quidni gratias illi hoc nomine agam? Quicquid debebam nolle, non possum. Cum libellis mihi plurimus sermo est. Si quando intervenerunt epistulae tuae, tecum esse mihi videor et sic adficior animo, tamquam tibi non rescribam, sed respondeam, Itaque et de hoc, quod quaeris, quasi conloquar tecum, quale sit, una scrutabimur.

You ask whether every good is to be wished for. "If it is a good," you say, "to be bravely tortured, and to be burned with a great spirit, and to be sick with patience, it follows that these are to be wished for. But I see nothing among them worthy of a prayer. At any rate I know of no one to this day who has paid a vow on the ground that he had been flogged with whips, or twisted with gout, or stretched longer on the rack."

Quaeris, an omne bonum optabile sit. Si bonum est, inquis, fortiter torqueri et magno animo uri et patienter aegrotare, sequitur, ut ista optabilia sint. Nihil autem video ex istis voto dignum. Neminem certe adhuc scio eo nomine votum solvisse, quod flagellis caesus esset aut podagra distortus aut eculeo longior factus.

Distinguish these things, my Lucilius, and you will understand that there is in them something to be wished for. I should wish tortures to be far from me; but if they must be endured, I shall wish to bear myself in them bravely, honorably, with spirit. Why should I not prefer that no war befall? But if it befalls, I shall wish to bear nobly the wounds, the hunger, and all that the necessity of wars brings. I am not so mad as to long to be sick; but if I must be sick, I shall wish to do nothing intemperately, nothing in an unmanly way. Thus it is not the hardships that are to be wished for, but the virtue by which the hardships are borne.

Distingue, mi Lucili, ista, et intelleges esse in iis aliquid optandum. Tormenta abesse a me velim; sed si sustinenda fuerint, ut me in illis fortiter, honeste, animose geram, optabo, Quidni ego malim non incidere bellum? Sed si inciderit, ut vulnera, ut famem et omnia,quae bellorum necessitas adfert, generose feram, optabo. Non sum tam demens, ut aegrotare cupiam; sed si aegrotandum fuerit, ut nihil intemperanter, nihil effeminate faciam. optabo. Ita non incommoda optabilia sunt, sed virtus, qua perferantur incommoda.

Some of our school think that the brave endurance of all these things is not to be wished for – though not to be abhorred either – because what is sought in a prayer ought to be a pure good, untroubled and set outside annoyance. I disagree. Why? First, because it cannot happen that a thing be a good and yet not to be wished for. Next, if virtue is to be wished for, and no good is without virtue, then every good is to be wished for. And next, the brave endurance of tortures too is to be wished for.

Quidam ex nostris existimant omnium istorum fortem tolerantiam non esse optabilem, sed ne abominandam quidem, quia voto purum bonum peti debet et tranquillum et extra molestiam positum. Ego dissentio. Quare? Primum quia fieri non potest, ut aliqua res bona quidem sit, sed optabilis non sit. Deinde si virtus optabilis est, nullum autem sine virtute bonum est, omne bonum optabile est. Deinde etiam tormentorum fortis patientia optabilis est.

And now I ask: surely courage is to be wished for? And yet it despises dangers and challenges them. Its most beautiful and most wonderful part is this: not to yield to fires, to go to meet wounds, sometimes not even to dodge the weapons but to take them on the breast. If courage is to be wished for, then to bear tortures patiently is to be wished for; for this is a part of courage. But separate these things, as I said; there will be nothing to lead you into error. For it is not to suffer tortures that is to be wished for, but to suffer them bravely. It is the "bravely" that I wish for, which is virtue.

Etiamnunc interrogo: nempe fortitudo optabilis est? Atqui pericula contemnit et provocat. Pulcherrima pars eius maximeque mirabilis illa est, non cedere ignibus, obviam ire vulneribus, interdum tela ne vitare quidem, sed pectore excipere. Si fortitudo optabilis est, et tormenta patienter ferre optabile est; hoc enim fortitudinis pars est. Sed separa ista, ut dixi; nihil erit quod tibi faciat errorem. Non enim pati tormenta optabile est, sed pati fortiter. Illud opto fortiter, quod est virtus.

Yet who ever wished this for himself? Some prayers are open and avowed, when they are made piece by piece; some lie hidden, when many things are comprised in a single prayer. For instance, I pray for myself an honorable life. But an honorable life consists of various actions; in it is the cask of Regulus, the wound Cato tore open with his own hand, the exile of Rutilius, the poisoned cup that carried Socrates from prison to heaven. So when I prayed for myself an honorable life, I prayed for these things too, without which life sometimes cannot be honorable.

Quis tamen umquam hoc sibi optavit? Quaedam vota aperta et professa sunt, cum particulatim fiunt, quaedam latent, cum uno voto multa conprensa sunt. Tamquam opto mihi vitam honestam. Vita autem honesta actionibus variis constat; in hac est Reguli arca, Catonis scissum manu sua vulnus, Rutili exilium, calix venenatus, qui Socraten transtulit e carcere in caelum. Ita cum optavi mihi vitam honestam, et haec optavi, sine quibus interdum honesta non potest esse.

O thrice and four times blessed, to whom it fell to meet their death before their fathers’ eyes, beneath the high walls of Troy!

O terque quaterque beati. Quis ante ora patrum Troiae sub moenibus altis Contigit oppetere!

Decius devoted himself for the republic; spurring his horse, he charged into the midst of the enemy, seeking death. The second Decius after him, rival of his father’s virtue, with the solemn words now grown familiar in the family, rushed into the thickest of the line, anxious only that the offering find favor, thinking a good death a thing to be wished for. Do you doubt, then, whether it is best to die memorably and in some work of virtue?

Decius se pro re publica devovit; in medios hostes concitato equo mortem petens inruit. Alter post hunc, paternae virtutis aemulus, conceptis sollemnibus ac iam familiaribus verbis in aciem confertissiman incucurrit, de hoc sollicitus tantum, ut litaret, optabilem rem putans bonam mortem. Dubitas ergo, an optimum sit memorabilem mori et in aliquo opere virtutis?

When a man bravely endures tortures, he uses all the virtues. Perhaps one is most at hand and shows itself most – endurance. But there is courage there, of which endurance and suffering and tolerance are the branches. There is prudence, without which no plan is undertaken, which counsels that what you cannot escape you bear as bravely as you can. There is constancy, which cannot be dislodged from its place and lets go its purpose under no force that wrings at it. There is that inseparable company of the virtues: whatever is done honorably, one virtue does, but by the verdict of the whole council. But what is approved by all the virtues, even if it seems to be done by one, is to be wished for.

Cum aliquis tormenta fortiter patitur, omnibus virtutibus utitur. Fortasse una in promptu sit et maxime appareat patientia. Ceterum illic est fortitudo, cuius patientia et perpessio et tolerantia rami sunt. Illic est prudentia, sine qua nullum initur consilium, quae suadet, quod effugere non possis, quam fortissime ferre. Illic est constantia, quae deici loco non potest et propositum nulla vi extorquente dimittit. Illic est individuus ille comitatus virtutum: quicquid honeste fit, una virtus facit, sed ex consilii sententia. Quod autem ab omnibus virtutibus conprobatur, etiam si ab una fieri videtur, optabile est.

What? Do you think those things only to be wished for that come through pleasure and ease, that are welcomed at adorned doors? There are some goods of a sad countenance. There are some prayers that are celebrated not by a throng of well-wishers, but by men who adore and venerate.

Quid? Tu existimas ea tantum optabilia esse, quae per voluptatem et otium veniunt, quae excipiuntur foribus ornatis? Sunt quaedam tristis voltus bona. Sunt quaedam vota, quae non gratulantium coetu, sed adorantium venerantiumque celebrantur.

Do you then not think that Regulus wished to reach the Carthaginians? Put on the spirit of a great man, and withdraw a little while from the opinions of the crowd. Take, as much as you owe, the image of virtue most beautiful and most magnificent – virtue to be worshipped by us not with incense nor with garlands, but with sweat and blood.

Ita tu non putas Regulum optasse, ut ad Poenos perveniret? Indue magni viri animum et ab opinionibus volgi secede paulisper. Cape, quantam debes, virtutis pulcherrimae ac magnificentissimae speciem, quae nobis non ture nec sertis, sed sudore et sanguine colenda est.

Look upon Marcus Cato setting his most pure hands to that sacred breast and widening the wound he had driven not deep enough. Are you, after all, going to say to him: "I could wish for what you wished," and "I am grieved" – or "good fortune to what you are doing"?

Adspice M. Catonem sacro illi pectori purissimas manus admoventem et vulnera parum alte demissa laxantem. Utrum tandem illi dicturus es vellem quae velles et moleste fero an feliciter quod agis?

At this point our Demetrius comes to mind, who calls a life that is secure and without any onsets of fortune a "dead sea." To have nothing to rouse you, nothing to stir you up, by whose threat and onset you might test the firmness of your mind, but to lie in unshaken ease – that is not tranquility; it is a flat calm.

Hoc loco mihi Demetrius noster occurrit, qui vitam securam et sine ullis fortunae incursionibus mare mortuum vocat. Nihil habere, ad quod exciteris, ad quod te concites, cuius denuntiatione et incursu firmitatem animi tui temptes, sed in otio inconcusso iacere non est tranquillitas; malacia est.

Attalus the Stoic used to say: "I would rather fortune kept me in her camp than in her delights. I am tortured, but bravely: it is well. I am killed, but bravely: it is well." Listen to Epicurus: he will say even "it is sweet." I shall never put a soft name on a thing so honorable and so stern.

Attalus Stoicus dicere solebat: malo me fortuna in castris suis quam in deliciis habeat. Torqueor, sed fortiter; bene est. Occidor, sed fortiter; bene est. Audi Epicurum, dicet et dulce est. Ego tam honestae rei ac severae numquam molle nomen inponam.

I am burned, but unconquered. Why should I not think this to be wished for – not that the fire burns me, but that it does not conquer me? Nothing is more excellent than virtue, nothing more beautiful; and whatever is done at her command is both a good and to be wished for. Farewell.

Uror, sed invictus. Quidni hoc optabile putem — non quod urit me ignis, sed quod non vincit? Nihil est virtute praestantius, nihil pulchrius. Et bonum est et optabile, quicquid ex huius geritur imperio. Vale.

I fall in with your plan: hide yourself in retirement. But hide your retirement too. That you will be doing this with the Stoics’ warrant – if not by their precept, at least by their example – you may be sure. But you will do it by their precept as well; and you will satisfy both yourself and anyone you wish.

Consilio tuo accedo; absconde te in otio. Sed et ipsum otium absconde. Hoc te facturum Stoicorum etiam si non praecepto, at exemplo licet scias. Sed ex praecepto quoque facies; et tibi et cui voles adprobabis.

We do not send the wise man to every commonwealth, nor always, nor without any limit. Besides, when we have given the wise man a commonwealth worthy of him – that is, the world – he is not outside the commonwealth even if he has withdrawn; nay, perhaps, leaving one corner, he passes into greater and ampler regions, and, set among the heavens, he understands, when once he mounted the magistrate’s chair or the tribunal, on how lowly a seat he sat. Lay this up with yourself: the wise man is never more in action than when things divine and human have come within his view.

Nec ad omnem rem publicam mittimus nec semper nec sine ullo fine. Praeterea, cum sapienti rem publicam ipso dignam dedimus, id est mundum, non est extra rem publicam, etiam si recesserit, immo fortasse relicto uno angulo in maiora atque ampliora transit et caelo inpositus intellegit, cum sellam aut tribunal ascenderet, quam humili loco sederit. Depone hoc apud te, numquam plus agere sapientem, quam quom in conspectum eius divina atque humana venerunt.

Now I return to what I had begun to urge upon you – that your retirement be unknown. There is no reason to label yourself with "philosophy" or "quiet." Give your purpose another name; call it ill health and weakness and idleness. To boast of one’s leisure is lazy ambition.

Nunc ad illud revertor, quod suadere tibi coeperam, ut otium tuum ignotum sit. Non est quod inscribas tibi philosophiam aut quietem. Aliud proposito tuo nomen inpone; valetudinem et inbecillitatem voca et desidiam. Gloriari otio iners ambitio est.

Certain animals, that they may not be found, confuse their own tracks around their very lair; the same you must do. Otherwise there will be no lack of those who always follow. Many pass by what is open and rummage in what is hidden and shut away; what is sealed tempts the thief. Whatever lies open seems cheap; the burglar passes an open door by. These are the manners of the populace, these of every most ignorant man: he longs to break into the secret. And so it is best not to flaunt one’s leisure.

Animalia quaedam ne inveniri possint, vestigia sua circa ipsum cubile confundunt; idem tibi faciendum est. Alioqui non deerunt, qui semper sequantur. Multi aperta transeunt, condita et abstrusa rimantur; furem signata sollicitant. Vile videtur, quicquid patet, aperta effractarius praeterit. Hos mores habet populus, hos imperitissimus quisque: in secreta inrumpere cupit. Optimum itaque est non iactare otium suum.

But to hide too much, and to withdraw from the sight of men, is itself a kind of flaunting. This man has buried himself at Tarentum; that one has shut himself up at Naples; another for many years does not cross the threshold of his own house. Whoever has fastened some story upon his leisure calls a crowd together.

Iactandi autem genus est nimis latere et a conspectu hominum secedere. Ille Tarentum se abdidit, ille Neapoli inclusus est, ille multis annis non transit domus suae limen. Convocat turbam, quisquis otio suo aliquam fabulam inposuit.

When you have withdrawn, this is not the thing to do – to make men talk about you, but to talk with yourself. But what will you say? Do what men most gladly do about others: think ill of yourself, to yourself; you will grow used both to speaking the truth and to hearing it. But handle most of all that which you feel to be weakest in you.

Cum secesseris, non est hoc agendum, ut de te homines loquantur, sed ut ipse tecum loquaris. Quid autem loqueris? Quod homines de aliis libentissime faciunt, de te apud te male existima; adsuesces et dicere verum et audire. Id autem maxime tracta, quod in te esse infirmissimum senties.

Each man knows the faults of his own body. And so one relieves his stomach by vomiting, another props it with frequent food, another drains and purges his body by an interposed fast. Those whose feet the pain visits again abstain from wine or from the bath. Careless in other things, they meet head-on the trouble by which they are often beset; so in our mind there are certain ailing parts, as it were, to which a cure must be applied.

Nota habet sui quisque corporis vitia. Itaque alius vomitu levat stomachum, alius frequenti cibo fulcit, alius interposito ieiunio corpus exhaurit et purgat. Ii, quorum pedes dolor repetit, aut vino aut balineo abstinent. In cetera neglegentes huic, a quo saepe infestantur, occurrunt; sic in animo nostro sunt quaedam quasi causariae partes, quibus adhibenda curatio est.

What do I do in my leisure? I tend my ulcer. If I were to show you a swollen foot, a livid hand, or the withered sinews of a shrunken leg, you would let me lie in one place and nurse my disease. There is a greater evil, which I cannot show you: in my very breast is a gathering and an abscess. I do not, I do not want your praises; I do not want you to say: "O great man! He has despised all things, and, condemning the frenzies of human life, has fled."

Quid in otio facio? Ulcus meum curo. Si ostenderem tibi pedem turgidum, lividam manum aut contracti cruris aridos nervos, permitteres mihi uno loco iacere et fovere morbum meum. Maius malum est hoc, quod non possum tibi ostendere; in pectore ipso collectio et vomica est. Nolo nolo laudes, nolo dicas: o magnum virum! contempsit omnia et damnatis humanae vitae furoribus fugit.

I have condemned nothing but myself. There is no reason for you to want to come to me for the sake of progress. You are mistaken if you hope for any help from here; not a doctor, but a sick man dwells here. I would rather that, when you depart, you said: "I used to think this man blessed and learned. I had pricked up my ears; I have been let down. I saw nothing, I heard nothing, that I should covet, to which I should come back." If you feel this, if you say this, some progress has been made. I would rather you forgave my leisure than envied it.

Nihil damnavi nisi me. Non est quod proficiendi causa venire ad me velis. Erras, qui hinc aliquid auxilii speras; non medicus, sed aeger hic habitat. Malo, cum discesseris, dicas: ego istum beatum hominem putabam et eruditum. Erexeram aures; destitutum sum. Nihil vidi, nihil audii, quod concupiscerem, ad quod reverterer. Si hoc sentis, si hoc loqueris, aliquid profectum est. Malo ignoscas otio meo quam invideas.

"Leisure," you say, "Seneca, is what you recommend to me? You are slipping into Epicurean talk." I recommend to you a leisure in which you may do greater and finer things than those you have left behind – greater than to beat on the proud doors of the more powerful, to enter childless old men in your register letter by letter, to wield the most influence in the forum: such power is invidious and brief, and, if you weigh it truly, sordid.

Otium, inquis, Seneca, commendas mihi? Ad Epicureas voces delaberis. Otium tibi commendo, in quo maiora agas et pulchriora quam quae reliquisti; pulsare superbas potentiorum fores, digerere in litteram senes orbos, plurimum in foro posse invidiosa potentia ac brevis est et, si verum aestimes, sordida.

That man will far outstrip me in favor at the bar, that one in military service and the rank won by it, that one in a throng of clients; it is worth being beaten by all, provided that fortune is beaten by me – fortune, with whom in the crowd I cannot be on equal terms; she has the more influence there.

Ille me gratia forensi longe antecedet, ille stipendiis militaribus et quaesita per hoc dignitate, ille clientium turba; est tanti ab omnibus vinci, dum a me fortuna vincatur, cui in turba par esse non possum; plus habet gratiae.

Would that your mind had once had the purpose of following this course! Would that we were not treating of the happy life within sight of death! But even now let us not delay. For many things that we should have believed superfluous and hostile to reason, we now believe on the strength of experience.

Utinam quidem hoc propositum sequi olim fuisset animus tibi! Utinam de vita beata non in conspectu mortis ageremus! Sed nunc quoque non moremur. Multa enim, quae supervacua esse et inimica credituri fuimus rationi, nunc experientiae credimus.

Let us do what those are wont to do who have set out rather late and want to make up time by speed: let us add the spur. This age does best for these studies; it has now foamed off its dregs. It has now worn down the vices that were untamed in the first heat of youth; not much remains for it before it puts them out.

Quod facere solent, qui serius exierunt et volunt tempus celeritate reparare, calcar addamus; haec aetas optime facit ad haec studia; iam despumavit. Iam vitia primo fervore adulescentiae indomita lassavit, non multum superest ut extinguat.

"And when," you say, "will it profit you, this that you learn at your exit, or for what purpose?" For this: that I may depart the better. Yet you must not think any age fitter for a good mind than one that has subdued itself by many trials, by long and frequent regret for things, and has come to what is wholesome with its passions softened. This is the season of this good; whoever as an old man arrives at wisdom, has arrived by his years. Farewell.

Et quando, inquis, tibi proderit istud, quod in exitu discis, aut in quam rem? In hanc, ut exeam melior. Non est tamen quod existimes ullam aetatem aptiorem esse ad bonam mentem quam quae se multis experimentis, longa ac frequenti rerum paenitentia edomuit, quae ad salutaria mitigatis adfectibus venit. Hoc est huius boni tempus; quisquis senex ad sapientiam pervenit, annis pervenit. Vale.

I do not want you to keep changing places and leaping from one spot to another; first, because so frequent a moving is the mark of an unsteady mind. It cannot grow firm in retirement unless it ceases to look about and to wander. That you may be able to hold your mind in, first stop the flight of your body.

Mutare te loca et aliunde alio transilire nolo; primum, quia tam frequens migratio instabilis animi est. Coalescere otio non potest, nisi desit circumspicere et errare. Ut animum possis continere, primum corporis tui fugam siste.

Next, remedies kept up do the most good. Your quiet, and the forgetting of your former life, must not be broken off. Let your eyes unlearn, let your ears grow used to wholesomer words. As often as you go abroad, in the very passage some things will meet you that renew your desires.

Deinde plurimum remedia continuata proficiunt. Interrumpenda non est quies et vitae prioris oblivio. Sine dediscere oculos tuos, sine aures adsuescere sanioribus verbis. Quotiens processeris, in ipso transitu aliqua, quae renovent cupiditates tuas, tibi occurrent.

As the man who tries to put off love must shun every reminder of the beloved body – for nothing breaks out afresh more easily than love – so he who wishes to lay down the longings for all the things in whose desire he has burned must turn both eyes and ears away from what he has left. The passion is quick to rebel.

Quemadmodum ei, qui amorem exuere conatur, evitanda est omnis admonitio dilecti corporis, nihil enim facilius quam amor recrudescit, ita qui deponere vult desideria rerum omnium, quarum cupiditate rlagravit flagravit, et oculos et aures ab iis, quae reliquit, avertat. Cito rebellat adfectus.

Wherever it turns, it will catch sight of some present reward for its busyness. No vice is without its bounty. Avarice promises money, luxury many and varied pleasures, ambition the purple and the applause, and out of this power, and whatever power can do.

Quocumque se verterit, pretium aliquod praesens occupationis suae aspiciet. Nullum sine auctoramento malum est. Avaritia pecuniam promittit, luxuria multas ac varias voluptates, ambitio purpuram et plausum et ex hoc potentiam et quicquid potest potentia.

The vices solicit you with a wage; here you must live for nothing. Scarcely in a whole age can it be brought about that vices swollen by so long a license are subdued and take the yoke – much less if we chop so short a time into intervals. Even one single thing, whatever it be, unbroken watchfulness and concentration scarcely bring to perfection.

Mercede te vitia sollicitant; hic tibi gratis vivendum est. Vix effici toto saeculo potest, ut vitia tam longa licentia tumida subigantur et iugum accipiant, nedum, si tam breve tempus intervallis caedimus. Unam quamlibet rem vix ad perfectum perducit adsidua vigilia et intentio.

If you will hear me indeed, practice and rehearse this: both to receive death and, if circumstance shall so advise, to summon it. It makes no difference whether it comes to us or we to it. Persuade yourself that this saying of every most ignorant man is false: "It is a fine thing to die one’s own death." No one dies but his own death. Besides, you may reflect with yourself: no one dies but on his own day. You lose nothing of your own time; for what you leave behind is another’s. Farewell.

Si me quidem velis audire, hoc meditare et exerce, ut mortem et excipias et, si ita res suadebit, accersas. Interest nihil, illa ad nos veniat an ad illam nos. Illud imperitissimi cuiusque verbum falsum esse tibi ipse persuade: Bella res est mori sua morte. Nemo moritur nisi sua morte. Illud praeterea tecum licet cogites: nemo nisi suo die moritur. Nihil perdis ex tuo tempore; nam quod relinquis, alienum est. Vale.

After a long interval I have seen your Pompeii. I was brought back into the sight of my youth. Whatever I had done there as a young man, I seemed to myself able to do still, and to have done a little while ago.

Post longum intervallum Pompeios tuos vidi. In conspectum adulescentiae meae reductus sum. Quicquid illic iuvenis feceram, videbar mihi facere adhuc posse et paulo ante fecisse.

The lands and the cities fall away.

Terraeque urbesque recedant,

We, in our utter madness, think that thing a reef; it is a harbor, sometimes to be sought, never to be refused – into which if a man has been carried within his earliest years, he ought no more to complain than one who has had a quick voyage. For one man, as you know, the sluggish winds toy with and detain, and weary with the tedium of a most lingering calm; another a persistent gale carries through most swiftly.

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.

Think the same befalls us: some, life has brought most swiftly to where they had to come even had they lingered; others it has steeped and stewed. Which life, as you know, is not always to be held onto. For to live is not the good, but to live well. And so the wise man lives as long as he ought, not as long as he can.

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. Itaque sapiens vivit, quantum debet, non quantum potest.

He will see where he is to live, with whom, how, what he is to do. He thinks always of what kind a life is, not how great. If many troublesome things befall and disturb his tranquility, he releases himself. And this he does not only in the last extremity, but as soon as fortune has begun to be suspect to him he looks carefully around whether he should not on that account make an end. He counts it nothing to himself whether he make the end or receive it, whether it come later or sooner. He does not fear it as a great loss; no one can lose much from a dripping.

Videbit ubi victurus sit, cum quibus, quomodo, quid acturus. Cogitat semper, qualis vita, non quanta 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 ideo desinendum sit. Nihil existimat sua referre, faciat finem an accipiat, tardius fiat an citius. Non tamquam de magno detrimento timet; nemo multum ex stilicidio potest perdere.

To die sooner or later is nothing to the point; to die well or ill is to the point. But to die well is to escape the danger of living ill. And so I judge most effeminate that saying of the famous Rhodian, who, when he had been thrown into a cage by a tyrant and fed like some wild beast, replied to one who urged him to abstain from food: "A man, while he lives, may hope for anything."

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.

Granting this to be true, life is not to be bought at every price. Some things, though they be great, though they be sure, I will yet not come to by the shameful confession of weakness. Shall I reflect that in the man who lives fortune can do anything, rather than reflect that in the man who knows how to die fortune can do nothing?

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?

Yet sometimes, even if certain death is at hand and he knows the punishment appointed for him, he will not lend a hand to his own penalty; to himself he would lend it. It is folly to die from fear of death. He who is to kill you is coming. Wait. Why anticipate him? Why take upon yourself the management of another’s cruelty? Do you envy your executioner, or spare him?

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. Expecta. Quid occupas? Quare suscipis alienae crudelitatis procurationem? Utrum invides carnifici tuo an parcis?

Socrates could have ended his life by abstinence, and died of starvation rather than of poison. Yet he spent thirty days in prison, in expectation of death, not in this spirit, as though anything might happen, as though so long a time admitted many hopes, but that he might offer himself to the laws, that he might give his friends the enjoyment of Socrates to the last. What was more foolish than to despise death and fear the poison?

Socrates potuit abstinentia finire vitam et inedia potius quam veneno mori. Triginta tamen dies in carcere et in expectatione 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?

Scribonia, a weighty woman, was the aunt of Drusus Libo, a young man as stupid as he was noble, hoping for greater things than anyone in that age could hope, or than he himself could at any time. When he had been carried sick from the senate-house in a litter – and with no very crowded retinue, for all his kin had impiously deserted him, no longer a defendant but a corpse – he began to take counsel whether he should bring death on himself or wait for it. To him Scribonia said: "What pleasure do you take in doing another’s business?" She did not persuade him; he laid hands on himself, and not without reason. For if a man who is to die in three or four days at his enemy’s pleasure goes on living, he is doing another’s business.

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 exequiis, omnes enim necessarii deseruerant impie iam non reum, sed funus; habere coepit consilium, utrum conscisceret mortem an expectaret. Cui Scribonia: Quid te, inquit, delectat alienum negotium agere? Non persuasit illi; manus sibi attulit nec sine causa. Nam post diem tertium aut quartum inimici moriturus arbitrio si vivit, alienum negotium agit.

You cannot, then, pronounce on the matter once for all – when an outside force threatens death, whether it should be anticipated or awaited. For there are many things that can draw us either way. If one death is with torture, the other simple and easy, why should not a hand be laid on the latter? As I would choose a ship when about to sail, and a house when about to dwell, so I would choose a death when about to depart from life.

Non possis itaque de re in universum pronuntiare, cum mortem vis externa denuntiat, occupanda sit an expectanda. Multa enim sunt, quae in utramque martem 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.

Besides, just as a longer life is not necessarily better, so a longer death is necessarily worse. In nothing more than in death ought we to humor the mind. Let it go out the way it has taken its impulse: whether it seeks the sword, or the noose, or some draught that seizes the veins, let it go on and break the chains of slavery. His life a man owes to the approval of others too; his death, to himself alone. The best death is the one that pleases.

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. Vitam et aliis adprobare quisque debet, mortem sibi. Optima est, quae placet.

These are foolish thoughts: "Someone will say I acted with too little courage, someone with too much rashness, someone that there was a more spirited kind of death." Will you please reflect that the resolve is in your hands, which reputation does not reach! Look to this one thing: to snatch yourself from fortune as swiftly as you can; otherwise there will be men to think ill of your deed.

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.

You will find even men who profess wisdom denying that force should be brought against one’s own life, and judging it a sin to become one’s own slayer; one must await the end that nature has decreed. He who says this does not see that he is barring the road to liberty. The eternal law has done nothing better than that it gave us one entrance to life, but many exits.

Invenies etiam professos sapientiam, qui vim adferendam vitae suae negent et nefas iudicent ipsum interemptorem sui fieri; expectandum esse exitum, quem natura decrevit. Hoc qui dicit, non videt se libertatis viam eludere. Nil melius aeterna lex fecit, quam quod unum introitum nobis ad vitam dedit, exitus multos.

Shall I await the cruelty either of disease or of man, when I can go out through the midst of the torments and shake off what is against me? This is the one thing for which we cannot complain of life: it holds no one. Human affairs stand in a good case, in that no one is wretched except by his own fault. Does it please you? Live. Does it not please you? You are free to go back whence you came.

Ego expectem 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; vive. Non placet; licet eo reverti, unde venisti.

To relieve a headache you have often let blood. To reduce the body a vein is struck. There is no need to lay open the breast with a vast wound; with a lancet the road is opened to that great liberty, and security stands in a pin-prick. What is it, then, that makes us slow and idle? None of us reflects that some day he must go out from this dwelling; so old tenants are held back by fondness for the place and by habit, even amid wrongs.

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

Do you wish to be free against this body? Dwell in it as one about to move out. Set before yourself that some day you must do without this lodging; you will be the braver for the necessity of going out. But how will their own end come into the minds of those who covet all things without end?

Vis adversus hoc corpus liber esse? Tamquam migraturus habita. Propone tibi quandoque hoc contubernio carendum; fortior eris ad necessitatem exeundi. Sed quemadmodum suus finis veniet in mentem omnia sine fine concupiscentibus?

The meditation of nothing is so necessary. For other things are perhaps practiced to no purpose. The mind has been prepared against poverty: riches have stayed. We have armed ourselves for the contempt of pain: the good fortune of a whole and sound body has never exacted the proof of this virtue from us. We have schooled ourselves to bear bravely the loss of those we love: fortune has kept alive all whom we loved. Of this one thing the day will come that exacts the use.

Nullius rei meditatio tam necessaria est. Alia enim fortasse exercentur in supervacuum. Adversus paupertatem praeparatus est animus; permansere divitiae. Ad contemptum nos doloris armavimus; nunquam a nobis exegit huius virtutis experimentum integri ac sani felicitas corporis. Ut fortiter amissorum desideria paterentur praecepimus nobis; omnes, quos amabamus, superstites fortuna servavit. Huius unius rei usum qui exigat dies veniet.

There is no reason for you to think that only great men have had this strength, by which they broke through the bars of human slavery; no reason to judge that it can be done by none but a Cato, who drew out with his hand the soul he had not let out with the sword. Men of the meanest station have escaped into safety by a mighty impulse, and, when they were not allowed to die at their convenience nor to choose the instruments of death at their own discretion, they snatched up whatever lay in the way, and out of things by nature harmless made, by their own force, weapons.

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.

Lately, in a school of beast-fighters, one of the Germans, while he was being made ready for the morning shows, withdrew to relieve his body – no other privacy without a guard was allowed him. There the stick that, with a sponge fixed to it, is set out for cleaning the filth he crammed whole down his throat, and, blocking his windpipe, choked out his breath. This was to put an insult upon death. Just so – too foully and too unbecomingly; but what is more foolish than to die fastidiously?

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?

O brave man, O worthy to be given the choice of his fate! How bravely he would have used a sword, how spiritedly he would have flung himself into the depth of the sea or down a sheer cliff! Cut off on every side, he found a way to furnish himself both with death and with a weapon – that you may know nothing stands in the way of dying but the will. Let the deed of that most fierce man be judged as each shall see fit, provided this stand firm: that the foulest death is to be preferred to the cleanest slavery.

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 inmisisset! Undique destitutum invenit, quemadmodum et mortem sibi deferret et telum, ut scias ad moriendum nihil aliud in mora esse quam velle. Existimetur de facto hominis acerrimi, ut cuique visum erit, dum hoc constet, praeferendam esse spurcissimam mortem servituti mundissimae.

Since I have begun to use base examples, I will go on. For each man will exact more of himself if he sees that this thing can be despised even by the most despised. The Catos and the Scipios, and the others whom we are accustomed to hear of with admiration, we think set beyond imitation; but I will now show that this virtue has as many examples in the beast-fighters’ school as among the leaders of the civil war.

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.

Lately, when a man sent to the morning show was being conveyed among the guards, as though nodding with oppressive sleep he let his head sink so far that he thrust it among the spokes, and held himself in his seat long enough for the turning of the wheel to break his neck. In the very vehicle by which he was carried to his punishment he made his escape.

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.

Nothing stands in the way of one who wishes to break out and go forth. Nature keeps us in the open. Whoever’s own necessity permits it, let him look about for a soft exit; whoever has more means to hand by which to set himself free, let him make his choice and consider by what he may best be released; whoever’s occasion is hard, let him snatch the nearest as the best, be it unheard-of, be it new. Wit for dying will not fail the man whose spirit has not failed.

Nihil obstat erumpere et exire cupienti. In aperto nes natura custodit. Cui permittit necessitas sua, circumspicit exitum mollem: cui ad manum plura sunt, per quae sese adserat. 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.

Do you see how even the meanest slaves, when pain has driven its goad into them, are roused and elude the most watchful guards? He is a great man who not only commanded death for himself, but found it. From the same show I promised you more examples.

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.

At the second show, the sea-fight, one of the barbarians plunged the whole lance, which he had been given against his adversaries, into his own throat. "Why, why," he said, "do I not this long while escape every torment, every mockery? Why do I, armed, wait for death?" This show was the more glorious by just so much –

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 expecto? Tanto hoc speciosius spectaculum fuit,

– as it is more honorable that men should learn to die than to kill. What then? Shall the lost and the harmful have what those men have not, whom long meditation and reason, the mistress of all things, has equipped against such chances? Reason teaches us that the approaches of fate are various, the end the same, and that it makes no difference whence begins what comes.

quanto honestius mori discunt homines quam occidere. Quid ergo? Quod animi perditi quodque 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.

That same reason warns you to die, if you may, as you please; if not, as you can, and to seize upon whatever shall come to hand for bringing force upon yourself. It is wrongful to live by what is snatched; but, on the contrary, it is most beautiful to die by what is snatched. Farewell.

Eadem illa ratio monet, ut, si licet, moriaris quemadmodum placet; si minus, quemadmodum potes, et quicquid obvenerit ad vim adferendam tibi invadas. Iniuriosum est rapto vivere, at contra pulcherrimum mori rapto. Vale.

You consult me from time to time on particular matters, forgetting 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 brought to you when the opposite is now the better. For counsels are fitted to circumstances; and our circumstances are carried along – nay, are whirled. Therefore a counsel ought to be born on the very day; and even this is too slow: let it be born, as they say, on the spot. How it is to be found, I will show you.

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

As often as you wish to know what is to be avoided or what to be sought, look to the highest good, the purpose of your whole life. For to it whatever we do ought to agree; no one will set the particulars in order unless he has already set before himself the sum of his life. No one, however ready his colors, will render a likeness unless it is already settled what he wishes to paint. We go wrong in this: that we all deliberate about the parts of life, but about the whole no one deliberates.

Quotiens, quid fugiendum sit aut quid petendum, voles scire, ad summum bonum, propositum totius vitae tuae, respice. Illi enim consentire debet, quicquid 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. Ideo peccamus, quia de partibus vitae omnes deliberamus, de tota nemo deliberat.

He who wishes to shoot an arrow must know what he aims at, and then direct and guide the weapon with his hand. Our counsels go astray because they have nothing to be aimed at. For the man who does not know what harbor he makes for, no wind is fair. It must be that chance has great power in our life, because we live by chance.

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

But it happens to some that they do not know that they know certain things. As we often go looking for the very people standing beside us, so for the most part we are ignorant that the end of the highest good is set right at our side. Not in many words, nor by a long circuit, will you gather what the highest good is; it must be pointed out, so to speak, with the finger, and not scattered into many parts. For what does it matter to draw it out into little bits, when you can say: the highest good is what is honorable? And – what you will marvel at more – the one good is the honorable, the rest are false and counterfeit goods.

Quibusdam autem evenit, ut quaedam scire se nesciant. Quemadmodum quaerimus saepe eos, cum quibus stamus, ita plerumque finem summi boni ignoramus adpositum. 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, 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.

If you persuade yourself of this and fall in love with virtue – for merely to love it is too little – then whatever it has touched will be to you, however it may seem to others, blessed and happy: both to be tortured, if only you lie more untroubled than the very man torturing you, and to be sick, if you do not curse fortune, if you do not yield to disease – in short, all the things that seem evils to others will grow tame and pass over into a good, if you have risen above them. Let this be clear, that nothing is good but the honorable, and all hardships will be called goods by their own right, provided that virtue has made them honorable.

Hoc si persuaseris tibi et virtutem adamaveris, amare enim parum est, quicquid 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.

To many we seem to promise greater things than the human condition admits; not without reason. For they look to the body. Let them turn back to the mind; soon they will measure man by a god. Rouse yourself, Lucilius, best of men, and leave that grammar-school of the philosophers, who reduce a most magnificent thing to syllables, who by teaching trifles lower and grind down the mind; you will become like those who discovered these things, not like those who teach them and contrive that philosophy should seem difficult rather than great.

Multis videmur maiora promittere quam recipit humana condicio; non inmerito. Ad corpus enim respiciunt. Revertantur ad animum; iam hominem deo metientur. Erige te, Lucili virorum optime, et relinque istum ludum literarium 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.

Socrates, who recalled the whole of philosophy to conduct and said that the sum of wisdom was this – to distinguish goods and evils – said: "Follow those rules, if I have any authority with you, that you may be blessed; and let yourself seem a fool to someone. Let whoever wishes do you insult and injury; yet you will suffer nothing, if only virtue is with you. If you wish to be blessed," he said, "if to be a good man in good faith, let someone despise you." No one will grant this but he who has made all goods equal, because there is no good without the honorable, and the honorable is equal in all things.

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 bona exaequaverit, quia nec bonum sine honesto est et honestum in omnibus par est.

What then? Is there no difference between Cato’s praetorship and his rejection? No difference whether Cato is conquered or conquers in the line at Pharsalus? This good of his, by which, his party defeated, he could not be defeated, was it equal to that good by which he would have returned victorious to his country and composed the peace? Why should it not be equal? For by the same virtue bad fortune is overcome and good fortune set in order. But virtue cannot be made greater or less; it is of one stature.

Quid ergo? Nihil interest inter praeturam Catonis et repulsam? Nihil interest, utrum Pharsalica acie Cato vincatur an vincat? Hoc eius bonum, quo victis partibus non potest vinci, par erat illi bono, quo victor rediret in patriam et conponeret 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.

"But Gnaeus Pompey will lose his army; but that fairest hem of the republic, the optimates, and the front line of the Pompeian party, a senate bearing arms, will be routed in a single battle, and the ruin of so great an empire will be scattered over the whole world: one part of it will fall in Egypt, one in Africa, one in Spain." Nor will even this be granted the wretched republic – to fall but once.

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.

Let all things come to pass: let knowledge of the ground not aid Juba in his own kingdom, nor the most obstinate valor of his people on behalf of their king; let the loyalty of the men of Utica too, broken by misfortune, fail; and let the fortune of his name desert Scipio in Africa. It was provided long ago that Cato should take no harm.

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

Yet he was conquered. And count this too among the rejections of Cato; with as great a spirit will he bear that something has stood in the way of his victory as that something stood in the way of his praetorship. On the day he was rejected, he played at ball; the night he was to perish, he read. He held it the same to lose the praetorship and to lose his life; he had persuaded himself that all that happened must be borne.

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.

Why should he not endure the change of the republic with a brave and even mind? For what is exempt from the danger of change? Not earth, not heaven, not this whole fabric of all things, though it be guided by a god’s working. It will not always keep this order; some day will cast it from this course.

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.

All things go by fixed seasons; they must be born, grow, be extinguished. Whatever you see running above us, and these things to which we are joined and set as upon the most solid foundations, will be eaten away and cease. Nothing is without its own old age; at unequal intervals nature sends all to the same place. Whatever is, will not be – yet will not perish, but be dissolved.

Certis eunt cuncta temporibus; nasci debent, crescere, extingui. Quaecumque supra nos vides currere, et haec, quibus inmixti atque inpositi sumus veluti solidissimis carpentur ac desinent. Nulli non senectus sua est; inaequalibus ista spatiis eodem natura dimittit. Quicquid est, non erit, nec peribit, sed resolvetur.

To us, to be dissolved is to perish, for we look at what is nearest; the dull mind, the mind that has bound itself to the body, does not look ahead to things further off; otherwise it would bear more bravely the end of itself and of its own, if it hoped that, just as all those things, so life and death go by turns, and that what is composed is dissolved, what is dissolved composed, and that in this work turns the eternal art of the god who orders all.

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, ut omnia illa, sic vitam mortemque per vices ire et composita dissolvi, dissoluta componi, in hoc opere aeternam artem cuncta temperantis dei verti.

And so, as Marcus Cato, when he has run over the ages in his mind, will say: "The whole human race, both what is and what shall be, is condemned to death. All the cities that anywhere hold dominion, and that are the great ornaments of others’ empires – some day it will be asked where they were, and they will be swept away by various kinds of destruction; some wars will overthrow, others sloth and a peace turned to idleness will consume, and that thing deadly to great wealth, luxury. All these fertile plains a sudden flooding of the sea will hide, or the slipping of a sinking soil will draw down into an abrupt chasm. Why then should I be indignant or grieve, if by a tiny moment I go before the fate of the world?"

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 repentina maris inundatio abscondet aut in subitam cavernam considentis soli lapsus abducet. Quid est ergo quare indigner aut doleam, exiguo momento publica fata praecedo?

Let a great mind obey god, and whatever the law of the universe commands let it suffer without hesitation; either it is sent forth into a better life, to dwell more lucid and tranquil among things divine, or at least, with no harm to itself, it will be mingled again with nature and return into the whole. The honorable life, then, of Marcus Cato is no greater a good than an honorable death, since virtue is not heightened. Socrates used to say that truth and virtue were the same thing. As truth does not grow, so neither does virtue; it has its full numbers, it is complete.

Magnus animus deo pareat et quicquid lex universi iubet, sine cunctatione patiatur; aut in meliorem emittitur vitam lucidius tranquilliusque inter divina mansurus aut certe sine ullo futurus incommodo sui 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. Quomodo illa non crescit, sic ne virtus quidem; habet numeros suos, plena est.

There is no reason, then, for you to marvel that goods are equal – both those to be taken up of set purpose and those taken if circumstance has so brought it. For if you admit this inequality, counting the brave endurance of torture among the lesser goods, you will count it even among evils, and you will call Socrates unhappy in prison, unhappy Cato as he pulls open his wounds more spiritedly than he had made them, and most calamitous of all Regulus paying the penalty for a faith kept even toward enemies. And yet no one, not even of the softest, has dared to say this. For they deny that he is blessed, but still they deny that he is wretched.

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 mulieres, 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.

The old Academics confess that he is blessed even amid these torments, but not to perfection nor to the full. This can in no way be admitted; if he is not blessed, he is not in the highest good. What is the highest good has no step above itself, if only virtue is in it, if adversity does not lessen it, if it remains unharmed even with the body shattered – and it does remain. For I understand virtue as spirited and lofty, which whatever assails only spurs on.

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 quicquid infestat.

This spirit, which young men of noble nature often put on, struck by the beauty of some honorable thing, so that they despise all chance things – wisdom, surely, will pour it into us and hand it on. It will persuade us that the one good is the honorable; that this can neither be slackened nor heightened, no more than you will bend the rule by which the straight is wont to be proved. Whatever you change in it is an injury to the straight.

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

The same, then, we will say of virtue: it too is straight, it admits no bending. It can be made more rigid – but what more can be heightened in a rigid thing? It judges of all things; of it nothing judges. If it cannot itself be made straighter, then neither are the things done by it straighter, one than another. For they must answer to it; and so they are equal.

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

"What then?" you say. "Are reclining at a banquet and being tortured equal?" Does this seem strange to you? You may marvel at this the more: to recline at a banquet is an evil, to lie on the rack a good, if the former is done basely, the latter honorably. It is not the material that makes these things good or evil, but virtue. Wherever it has appeared, all things are of the same measure and price.

Quid ergo? inquis, iacere in convivio et torqueri paria sunt? Hoc mirum videtur tibi? Illud licet magis admireris; iacere in convivio malum, 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.

Now he threatens my eyes with his hands – the man who measures every mind by his own – because I say that the goods of those who judge honorably and of those who are in danger honorably are equal, because I say that the goods of the man who triumphs and of the man who is carried before the chariot, unconquered in mind, are equal. For they think whatever they cannot do is impossible; out of their own weakness they pass sentence on virtue.

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

Why do you marvel if to be burned, wounded, killed, bound is pleasing, sometimes even agreeable? To the luxurious, frugality is a punishment; to the lazy, labor is in the place of torment; the dainty man pities the industrious; to the slothful, to study is to be tortured. In the same way these things, to which we are all too weak, we believe hard and unbearable, forgetting how great a torment it is to many to go without wine, or to be roused at first light. These things are not hard by nature; we are flabby and nerveless.

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 inbecilli 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.

Of great things one must judge with a great mind; otherwise the fault that is ours will seem to be theirs. So certain things, perfectly straight, when they are sunk in water give back to the beholders the appearance of being bent and broken off. It matters not only what you see, but how; our mind grows dim for the discerning of truth.

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

Give me a young man uncorrupted and lively in genius; he will say that the man seems to him the more fortunate who bears up all the burdens of adversity with stiff neck, who stands out above fortune. It is no wonder to be unshaken in calm; marvel at this – that someone is lifted up there where all are pressed down, that he stands where all lie low.

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

What is the evil in tortures, what in the other things we call adverse? This, I think: that the mind should give way and be bent and sink. Of which nothing can happen to a wise man; he stands upright under any weight. Nothing makes him smaller; nothing of the things that must be borne displeases him. For whatever can fall to a man’s lot, he does not complain that it has fallen to him. He knows his own strength; he knows he is made for bearing a burden.

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

I do not draw the wise man out of the number of men, nor do I keep pains away from him as from some rock that admits no feeling. I remember that he is composed of two parts: one is irrational – this is bitten, burned, pained; the other rational – this holds unshaken convictions, is fearless and unsubdued. In this is set that highest good of man. Before it is filled, there is an uncertain wavering of the mind; but when it is perfected, there is that unmoved stability.

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 inrationalis, haec mordetur, uritur, dolet; altera rationalis, haec inconcussas opiniones habet, in trepida est et indomita. In hac positum est summum illud hominis bonum. Antequam impleatur, incerta mentis volutatio est; cum vero perfectum est, inmota illa stabilitas est.

And so the man begun and advancing toward the heights, the tiller of virtue, even if he draws near to the perfect good but has not yet laid the final hand to it, will at times go backward and slacken something of the mind’s intensity. For he has not yet passed beyond the uncertain; he is still on slippery ground. But the blessed man, of consummate virtue, loves himself most when he has been most bravely tested, and the things others dread, if they are the price of some honorable duty, he not only bears but embraces, and would far rather hear of himself "so much the better" than "so much the luckier."

Itaque inchoatus et ad summa procedens cultorque virtutis, etiam si adpropinquat perfecto bono, sed ei nondum summam manum inposuit, ibit interim cessim et remittet aliquid ex intentione mentis. Nondum enim incerta transgressus est, etiamnunc 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.

I come now to where your expectation calls me. Lest our virtue seem to wander outside the nature of things – the wise man too will tremble and feel pain and grow pale. For all these are sensations of the body. Where, then, is calamity, where that true evil? There, surely: if these things drag down the mind, if they bring it to a confession of slavery, if they make it repent of itself.

Venio nunc illo, quo me vocat expectatio 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? Illic scilicet, si ista animum detrahunt, si ad confessionem servitutis adducunt, si illi paenitentiam sui faciunt.

The wise man indeed conquers fortune by virtue, but many who have professed wisdom have sometimes been terrified by the lightest threats. Here is our fault, who exact the same from the man making progress as from the wise man. I still urge upon myself the things I praise; I do not yet persuade myself of them. And even if I had persuaded myself, I should not yet have them so ready or so practiced that they would run out to meet every chance.

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.

As wool drinks in some colors at a single dipping, others it does not take up unless steeped and boiled again and again; so some disciplines genius displays at once when it has received them, but this one – unless it has gone deep and long sat and not colored the mind but stained it – performs nothing of what it had promised.

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 his, quae promiserat, praestat.

This can be quickly handed on, and in very few words: that the one good is virtue, that there is certainly no good without virtue, and that virtue itself is set in the better part of us, that is, the rational. What will this virtue be? A true and unmoved judgment. For from this will come the impulses of the mind, and by this every appearance that stirs an impulse will be brought to clearness.

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 inmotum. Ab hoc enim impetus venient mentis, ab hoc omnis species, quae impetum movet, redigetur ad liquidum.

It will be consonant with this judgment to judge all things that virtue has touched both goods and equal among themselves. But the goods of bodies are indeed goods to bodies, yet on the whole are not goods. They will have some price, but no real worth; they will stand apart by great intervals among themselves: some will be smaller, some greater.

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.

And even among those who pursue wisdom we must needs confess there are great differences. One has now advanced so far that he dares to raise his eyes against fortune, but not stubbornly, for they fall, dazzled by too much splendor; another so far that he can match his countenance with hers – unless he has now reached the summit and is full of confidence.

Et in ipsis sapientiam sectantibus magna discrimina esse fateamur necesse est. Alius iam in tantum profecit, ut contra fortunam audeat adtollere 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.

Imperfect things must needs totter, and now come forward, now slip back or sink. But slip back they will, unless they have persevered in going and striving; if they relax anything of their zeal and faithful intent, they must go backward. No one finds his progress where he left it. Let us press on, then, and persevere.

Inperfecta 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. Instemus itaque et perseveremus.

More remains than we have routed; but a great part of progress is the will to make progress. Of this I am conscious to myself: I will, and with my whole mind I will. You too I see roused, and hastening with great impulse toward the fairest things. Let us hasten; only so will life be a benefit. Otherwise it is delay, and a shameful one, for those who dwell among foul things. Let us bring it about that all our time be ours. But it will not be, unless first we have begun to be our own.

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

When will it befall us to despise either fortune? When will it befall us, all the passions crushed and brought under our own control, to utter this word – "I have conquered"? Whom have I conquered, you ask? Not the Persians, nor the far bounds of the Medes, nor whatever warlike thing lies beyond the Dahae, but avarice, but ambition, but the fear of death, which has conquered the conquerors of nations. Farewell.

Quando continget contemnere utramque fortunam, quando continget omnibus oppressis adfectibus 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.

What you ask of me was clear to me, so thoroughly had I learned the thing through and through. But for a long time I have not tested my memory again, and so it does not easily follow me. I feel that there has happened to me what happens to books that have stuck together from disuse: the mind must be unrolled, and whatever has been laid up in it must be shaken out from time to time, that it may be ready whenever use demands. Therefore let us put this off for the present; for it asks much labor, much diligence. As soon as I hope for a longer stay in the same place, then I will take that matter in hand.

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

For there are some things you can write even in a gig. There are some that call for a couch and leisure and seclusion. Nonetheless, even on these crowded days let something be done – and done all day. For there will never fail to come new occupations; we sow them, and so out of one spring many. Then we ourselves grant ourselves delay: "When I have got through this, I will bend to it with my whole mind; if I settle this troublesome affair, I will give myself to study."

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

Philosophy is not to be pursued only when you have leisure; all else is to be neglected, that we may sit beside this, for which no time is great enough – even if life is drawn out from boyhood to the longest bounds of human age. It makes little difference whether you give up philosophy or interrupt it; for it does not stay where it was broken off, but, like things that spring apart when stretched, it runs back to its beginnings, because it has left off continuity. We must resist occupations, and not unfold them but push them away. No time, indeed, is too little suited to wholesome study; and yet many do not study amid the very things for the sake of which one should study.

Non cum vacaveris, philosophandum est; omnia alia neglegenda, ut huic adsideamus, 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 submovendae sunt. Tempus quidem nullum parum est idoneum studio salutari; atqui multi inter illa non student, propter quae studendum est.

Something will fall in the way to hinder – not, indeed, the man whose mind in every business is glad and lively; for the still imperfect, gladness is cut across, but the wise man’s joy is woven continuous, broken by no cause, by no fortune; always and everywhere he is tranquil. For he does not hang upon what is another’s, nor await the favor of fortune or of man. His happiness is homegrown; it would go out of his mind if it entered from without; there it is born.

Incidet aliquid, quod inpediat. Non quidem eum, cuius animus in omni negotio laetus atque alacer est; inperfectis 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 expectat. Domestica illi felicitas est; exiret ex animo, si intraret; ibi nascitur.

Sometimes something comes in from without to remind him of mortality, but it is light, and grazes the surface of the skin. Some inconvenience, I say, may be added; but that greatest good is fixed fast. So I say: from without there are certain inconveniences, like, on a body sometimes robust and solid, certain eruptions of pustules and little ulcers – there is no evil deep within.

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

This, I say, is the difference between the man of consummate wisdom and another making progress: the difference between a healthy man and one emerging from a grave and lingering disease, for whom a milder bout passes for health. This latter, unless he takes care, is soon weighed down again and rolls back into the same state; the wise man cannot relapse, nor even fall sick any further. For the body has good health only for a time, which the physician, even if he has restored it, does not guarantee – often he is summoned back to the very man who had called him. The mind is healed once and wholly.

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 adtendit, 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. Animus semel in totum sanatur.

I will tell you how I judge a mind healthy: if it is content with itself, if it trusts itself, if it knows that all the prayers of mortals, all the benefits 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 lasting; let him whose joy is to be lasting rejoice in his own. But all the things at which the crowd gapes flow back and forth. Fortune gives nothing to keep. Yet even these chance things please when reason has tempered and blended them; it is reason that commends even externals, whose use is thankless to those who are greedy for them.

Dicam, quomodo intellegam sanum: si se ipso 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 inperfectum est; cui aliquid abscedere potest, id inperpetuum est; cuius perpetua futura laetitia est, is suo gaudeat. Omnia autem, quibus vulgus inhiat, ultro citroque fluunt. Nihil dat fortuna mancipio. Sed haec quoque fortuita tunc delectant, cum illa ratio temperavit ac miscuit; haec est, quae etiam externa commendet, quorum avidis usus ingratus est.

Attalus used to use this image: "Have you ever seen a dog snapping with open mouth at the bits of bread or meat thrown by his master? Whatever he has caught he straightway swallows whole, and always gapes in hope of what is to come." The same happens to us: whatever fortune has tossed to us as we wait, that we gulp down without any pleasure, on the alert and agog for the snatching of the next. This does not happen to the wise man; he is full. Even if something comes his way, he receives it untroubled and lays it by.

Solebat Attalus hac imagine uti: vidisti aliquando canem missa a domino frusta panis aut carnis aperto ore captantem? Quicquid excepit, protinus integrum devorat et semper ad spem venturi hiat. Idem evenit nobis: quicquid expectantibus fortuna proiecit, id sine ulla voluptate demittimus statim, ad rapinam alterius erecti et adtoniti. Hoc sapienti non evenit; plenus est. Etiam si quid obvenit, secure excipit ac reponit.

He enjoys a gladness most great, continuous, his own. Another has good will, has progress, but is one far short of the summit; this man is pressed down and lifted up by turns, and now is raised to the sky, now borne down to earth. For the unskilled and raw there is no end of the plunging; they fall into that Epicurean chaos – void, and without limit.

Laetitia fruitur maxima, continua, sua. Habet aliquis bonam voluntatem, habet profectum, sed cui multum desit a summo; hic deprimitur alternis et extollitur ac modo in caelum adlevatur, modo defertur ad terram. Imperitis ac rudibus nullus praecipitationis finis est; in Epicureum illud chaos decidunt, inane, sine termino.

There is still a third kind, of those who play at the edge of wisdom: they have not reached it, yet have it in sight and, so to speak, within a stroke; these are not shaken, nor do they even slip away. Not yet on dry land, they are already in harbor.

Est adhuc genus tertium eorum, qui sapientiae adludunt, 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.

Since, then, the differences between the highest and the lowest are so great, since even those in the middle have their own wave following them – and following them, the vast danger of going back to the worse – we must not indulge our occupations. They must be shut out; if once they have entered, they will put others in their own place. Let us withstand their beginnings. Better they should not begin than that they should end. Farewell.

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. Vale.

They seem to me to be mistaken who think that men faithfully given to philosophy are stubborn and refractory, despisers of magistrates or kings, or of those through whom public affairs are administered. On the contrary, none are more grateful toward them; and not without reason. For to none do they owe more than to those by whose grace they may enjoy untroubled leisure.

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 inmerito. Nullis enim plus praestant quam quibus frui tranquillo otio licet.

And so those for whom public security contributes much toward their purpose of living well must needs cherish the author of this good as a parent – far more, indeed, than those restless men set in the midst of affairs, who owe princes much but also charge them with much, men whom no liberality can ever so fully meet as to glut their desires, which grow while they are filled. Whoever thinks about receiving has forgotten what he received; and desire has no greater evil than that it is ungrateful.

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 inputant, 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.

Add now that none of those engaged in public life looks at how many he outstrips, but at those by whom he is outstripped. And to them it is not so pleasant to see many behind them as it is grievous to see anyone ahead. Every ambition has this fault: it does not look back. And not ambition only is unstable, but every desire, because it always begins again from where it ended.

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.

But that man, sincere and pure, who has left the senate-house and the forum and all administration of the state to withdraw to ampler things, loves those by whose grace he may safely do so, and he alone renders them a freely-given testimony, and owes a great thing to men who know it not. As he reveres and looks up to his teachers, by whose benefit he comes out from those trackless places, so too he reveres these, under whose protection he plies the good arts.

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.

"But the king protects others too by his strength." Who denies it? Yet, just as among those who have used the same calm sea the man who carried more and costlier goods over it judges that he owes more to Neptune, and the vow is paid more spiritedly by the merchant than by the passenger, and among the merchants themselves he is the more lavishly grateful who was carrying perfumes and purple and wares to be weighed against gold than he who had heaped up the cheapest things, fit for ballast – so the benefit of this peace, which reaches all, comes more deeply home to those who use it well.

Verum alios quoque rex viribus suis protegit. Quis negat? Sed quemadmodum Neptuno plus debere se iudicat ex is, 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 gratus est, qui odores ac purpuras et auro pensanda portabat quam qui vilissima quaeque et saburrae loco futura congesserat; sic huius pacis beneficium ad omnes pertinentis altius ad eos pervenit, qui illa bene utuntur.

For there are many of these gowned citizens to whom peace is more laborious than war. Or do you think those owe the same for peace who spend it on drunkenness, or lust, or other vices that even war ought to break off? Unless perhaps you think the wise man so unfair as to judge that he, as an individual, owes nothing for the common goods. To the sun and the moon I owe very much, and yet they do not rise for me alone. To the year, and to the god who tempers the year, I am privately bound, although nothing has been ordained in my honor.

Multi enim sunt ex his togatis, quibus pax operosior bello est. An idem existimas pro pace debere eos, qui illam ebrietati aut libidini inpendunt 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.

The foolish avarice of mortals distinguishes possession from ownership, and believes nothing its own that is public. But that wise man judges nothing more his own than what he shares in common with the human race. For these things would not be common unless a part of them belonged to individuals; even what is common in the smallest portion makes one a partner.

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

Add now that great and true goods are not so divided that a scant share falls to each; they come whole to every one. From a largesse men carry off only as much as was promised a head. A feast, and a dole of meat, and whatever else is taken by hand, departs into portions. But these indivisible goods – peace and liberty – belong whole to all as much as to each.

Adice nunc, quod magna et vera bona non sic dividuntur, ut exiguum in singulos cadat; ad unumquemque tota perveniunt. Ex congiario tantum ferunt homines, quantum in capita promissum est. Epulum et visceratio et quicquid aliud manu capitur, discedit in partes. At haec individua bona, pax et libertas, et tam omnium tota quam singulorum sunt.

And so he reflects through whom the use and enjoyment of these falls to him, through whom no public necessity calls him to arms, nor to keeping watch, nor to guarding the walls, and to the manifold tribute of war; and he gives thanks to his helmsman. This philosophy teaches above all: to owe benefits well, to repay them well; and sometimes the repayment is the very acknowledgment.

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.

O Meliboeus, a god has made this leisure for us; for he shall ever be a god to me.

O Meliboee, deus nobis haec otia fecit: Namque erit ille mihi semper deus.

He it was let my cattle wander, as you see, and let me play what I would upon the rustic reed.

Ille meas errare boves, ut cernis, et ipsum Ludere quae vellem calamo permisit agresti;

So I say, Lucilius, and I call you to heaven by a short cut. Sextius used to say that Jupiter can do no more than a good man. Jupiter has more things that he may bestow on men, but between two good men he is not the better who is the richer – no more than, between two who have equal skill in handling the helm, you would call the better the one who has the larger and finer ship.

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.

In what does Jupiter surpass the good man? He is good for longer; the wise man thinks himself no whit the less because his virtues are shut within a shorter span. As, of two wise men, he who died the elder is not more blessed than he whose virtue was bounded within fewer years, so god does not surpass the wise man in happiness, even if he surpasses him in length of days.

Iuppiter quo antecedit virum bonum? Diutius bonus est; sapiens nihilo se minoris existimat, 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.

Virtue is not the greater for being the longer. Jupiter has all things, but he has surely handed them to others to hold; to himself this one use belongs – that he is the cause of all men’s using all. The wise man looks upon all the things in others’ hands and despises them with as even a mind as Jupiter, and looks up to himself the more for this: that Jupiter cannot use them, while the wise man does not wish to.

Non est virtus maior, quae longior. 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.

Let us, then, believe Sextius as he shows the most beautiful road and cries: "This is the way to the stars – this way, by frugality; this way, by temperance; this way, by fortitude." The gods are not disdainful, not envious; they admit us, and stretch out a hand to those who climb.

Credamus itaque Sextio monstranti pulcherrimum iter et clamanti: hac itur ad astra, hac secundum frugalitatem, hac secundum temperantiam, hac secundum fortitudinem. Non sunt di fastidiosi, non invidi; admittunt et ascendentibus manum porrigunt.

Do you marvel that a man goes to the gods? God comes to men – nay, what is nearer, comes into men; no mind is good without god. Divine seeds are scattered in human bodies, which, if a good husbandman receives them, come forth like their origin and rise equal to those from which they sprang; if a bad one, then no otherwise than a barren and marshy soil, he kills them, and thereafter brings forth rubbish instead of crops. Farewell.

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. Vale.

Your letter delighted me and roused me from my languor; it also called out my memory, which is now sluggish and slow with me. Why should you not, my Lucilius, think this the greatest instrument of the blessed life – the conviction that the one good is what is honorable? For he who judges other things to be goods comes into fortune’s power, becomes subject to another’s will; he who has bounded every good by the honorable is happy within himself.

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 beatae vitae 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 est felix.

This man is sad at the loss of his children, this one anxious over their sickness, this one downcast over base sons who have come to some disgrace. You will see that man tortured by love of another’s wife, that one by love of his own. There will be no lack of a man whom a rejection at the polls racks; there will be those whom office itself vexes.

Hic amissis liberis maestus, hic sollicitus aegris, hic turpibus et aliquam passis infamiam tristis. Illum videbis alienae uxoris amore cruciari, illum suae. Non deerit quem repulsa distorqueat; erunt quos ipse honor vexet.

But the greatest crowd of wretched men, out of the whole people of mortals, is the one that the expectation of death, hanging over them on every side, drives this way and that. For there is nothing from which it may not steal upon them. And so, like men moving in a hostile country, they must look about this way and that, and turn the neck at every noise; unless this fear has been cast out of the breast, one lives with throbbing heart.

Illa vero maxima ex omni mortalium populo turba miserorum, quam expectatio mortis exagitat undique inpendens. 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.

There will come to mind men driven into exile and rolled out of their goods. There will come to mind – and this is the heaviest kind of want – men poor amid riches. There will come to mind the shipwrecked, or those who have suffered the like of shipwreck, whom either the people’s anger or envy, that weapon deadly to the best, scattered, unsuspecting and secure, in the manner of a squall that is wont to rise in the very confidence of fair weather, or of a sudden thunderbolt, at whose stroke even the neighboring places trembled. For as there whoever stood nearer the fire was stunned like one struck, so in these things that befall by some violence calamity crushes one, fear the rest, and the bare possibility of suffering makes men able to feel a sadness equal to theirs who have suffered.

Occurrent acti in exilium et evoluti bonis. Occurrent, quod genus egestatis gravissimum est, in divitiis inopes. Occurrent naufragi similiave naufragis passi, quos aut popularis ira aut invidia, perniciosum optimis telum, inopinantes securesque 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.

The evils of others, and sudden ones, trouble all minds. As birds are frightened even by the whir of an empty sling, so we are driven not only by the blow but by the noise. No one, therefore, can be happy who has trusted himself to this opinion. For nothing is happy but what is fearless; among things suspected, one lives ill.

Omnium animos mala aliena ac repentina sollicitant. Quemadmodum aves etiam inanis fundae sonus territat, nos ita non ad ictum tantum exagitamur, sed ad crepitum. Non potest ergo quisquam beatus esse, qui huic se opinioni credidit. Non enim beatum est, nisi quod intrepidum; inter suspecta male vivitur.

Whoever has given himself over much to chance things has made for himself a vast and inextricable stuff of disturbance; this is the one road for the man who would go to safety – to despise externals and be content with the honorable. For he who thinks anything better than virtue, or any good besides it, spreads out his lap to these things that fortune scatters, and anxiously awaits her largesse.

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

Set this image before your mind: fortune holding games and shaking down upon this gathering of mortals honors, riches, favor – of which some are torn apart amid the hands of those who grab, some divided by faithless partnership, some seized to the great loss of those into whose hands they had come. Of these, some fell upon men busy with something else; some, because they were too eagerly snatched at, were lost, and, while greedily caught at, were knocked away. To no one – even to him for whom the snatching turned out happily – did the joy of the thing snatched last into the morrow. And so every most prudent man, as soon as he sees the little gifts being brought in, flees the theater, and knows that small things cost great. No one grapples with a man going off; no one strikes one departing: the brawl is around the prize.

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

The same happens with these things that fortune throws down from above: we burn, wretched; we are pulled apart; we wish we had many hands; we look now to this side, now to that. Too tardily, it seems to us, are sent the things that goad our desires – reached by few, awaited by all.

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 inritant, ad paucos perventum, expectata omnibus.

We long to go meet what is falling. We rejoice if we have seized something, and an empty hope of seizing has cheated some; we pay for a cheap booty with some great inconvenience, or, left in the lurch, are disappointed. Let us, then, withdraw from these games and give place to the grabbers; let them gaze at those goods hanging there, and themselves hang the more.

Ire obviam cadentibus cupimus. Gaudemus, si quid invasimus, invadendique aliquos spes vana delusit; vilem praedam magno aliquo incommodo luimus aut destituti fallimur. Secedamus itaque ab istis ludis et demus raptoribus locum; illi spectent bona ista pendentia et ipsi magis pendeant.

Whoever shall resolve to be happy, let him think the one good to be what is honorable. For if he supposes there is any other, first he passes an ill judgment on providence, because many inconveniences happen to just men, and because whatever it has given us is brief and scant, if you compare it with the age of the whole world.

Quicumque beatus esse constituet, unum esse bonum putet, quod honestum est. Nam si ullum aliud esse existimat, primum male de providentia indicit, quia multa incommoda iustis viris accidunt et quia, quicquid nobis dedit, breve est et exiguum, si compares mundi totius aevo.

Out of this lamenting it comes that we are ungrateful interpreters of things divine; we complain that good things do not come always, that they come to us few, and uncertain, and bound to pass away. Hence it is that we wish neither to live nor to die; a hatred of life holds us, a fear of death. Every plan wavers, and no happiness can fill us. The cause, however, is that we have not arrived at that immense and insuperable good, where our will must needs come to a stand, because beyond the summit there is no place.

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 inplere nos ulla felicitas potest. Causa autem est, quod non pervenimus ad illud bonum inmensum et insuperabile, ubi necesse est resistat voluntas nostra, quia ultra summum non est locus.

You ask why virtue lacks nothing? It rejoices in what is present, it does not crave what is absent. Nothing is not great to it, that is enough. Depart from this judgment, and neither piety nor faith will hold firm. For many things from among those called evils must be borne by one who wishes to render either; much must be spent from among those things we indulge in as goods.

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 inpendenda ex iis, quibus indulgemus tamquam bonis.

Fortitude perishes, which must make trial of itself; magnanimity perishes, which cannot stand out unless it has despised, as petty, all the things the crowd longs for as the greatest; gratitude and the return of gratitude perish, if we fear toil, if we know anything more precious than faith, if we do not look to the best.

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

But, to pass these by, either those things are not goods that are so called, or man is happier than god, since indeed the things prepared for us god has not in his use. For neither lust pertains to him, nor the daintiness of banquets, nor wealth, nor anything of these things that bait man and lead him by cheap pleasure. Therefore either it is not incredible that goods are lacking to god, or this very thing is the proof that they are not goods, that they are lacking to god.

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

Add that many things which wish to seem goods fall more fully to animals than to man. They use their food more greedily, they are not equally wearied by sex, their strength is greater and of a more even firmness. It follows that they are far happier than man. For they live without wickedness, without frauds. They enjoy pleasures, which they both take more of, and easily, without any fear of shame or repentance.

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.

Consider, then, whether that ought to be called a good in which god is surpassed by man. Let us keep the highest good in the mind; it grows worthless if it passes from the best part of us to the worst and is transferred to the senses, which are nimbler in the dumb animals. The sum of our happiness is not to be set in the flesh; those are true goods that reason gives – solid and everlasting, which cannot fall, nor even decrease or be lessened.

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 aut minui.

The rest are goods by opinion, and share indeed a common name with the true, but the property of a good is not in them. Let them therefore be called advantages and – to speak in our own tongue – "preferred." For the rest, let us know that they are our chattels, not our parts; and let them be with us, but so that we remember they are outside us. Even if they are with us, let them be counted among things subject and lowly, on account of which no one ought to lift himself up. For what is more foolish than for a man to please himself with what he himself did not make?

Cetera opinione bona sunt et nomen quidem habent commune cum veris, proprietas 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 adtollere debeat. Quid enim stultius quam aliquem eo sibi placere, quod ipse non fecit?

Let all those things accrue to us, not cleave to us, so that, if they are led away, they may depart without any tearing of us. Let us use them, not boast of them, and use them sparingly, as things deposited with us and bound to go. Whoever has possessed them without reason has not held them long; for happiness itself overwhelms a man, unless he keeps it under with more restraint. If he has trusted to these most fleeting goods, he is soon deserted, and, that he be not deserted, is afflicted. To few has it been granted to lay down their happiness gently; the rest fall together with the things among which they stood out, and the very things that had raised them weigh them down.

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 temperatius premit. Si fugacissimis bonis credidit, cito deseritur et, ut non deseratur, adfligitur. Paucis deponere felicitatem molliter licuit; ceteri cum iis, inter quae eminuere, labuntur et illos degravant ipsa, quae extulerant.

Therefore prudence will be applied, to set measure or thrift upon them, since license casts down and presses its own resources. Nor have immoderate things ever lasted, unless that governing reason has held them in check. The outcome of many cities will show you this – cities whose luxurious empires fell in their very flower, and whatever had been won by virtue collapsed through intemperance. Against these chances we must be fortified. But there is no wall impregnable against fortune; let us be furnished within. If that part is safe, a man can be battered, but cannot be captured.

Ideo adhibebitur prudentia, quae modum illis aut parsimoniam imponat, quoniam quidem licentia opes suas praecipitat atque urget. Nec umquam inmodica durarunt, nisi illa moderatrix ratio conpescuit. Hoc multarum tibi urbium ostendet eventus, quarum in ipso flore luxuriosa imperia ceciderunt et quicquid virtute partum erat, intemperantia corruit. Adversus hos casus muniendi sumus. Nullus autem contra fortunam inexpugnabilis murus est; intus instruamur. Si illa pars tuta est, pulsari homo potest, capi non potest.

Do you wish to know what this furnishing is? Let him be indignant at nothing that happens to him, and let him know that those very things by which he seems harmed pertain to the preservation of the universe and are among the things that consummate the course and the duty of the world. Let whatever has pleased god please man; let him marvel at himself and his own for this very thing – that he cannot be conquered, that he holds the evils themselves beneath him, that by reason, than which nothing is stronger, he subdues chance and pain and injury.

Quod sit hoc instrumentum, scire desideras? Nihil indignetur sibi accidere sciatque illa ipsa, quibus laedi videtur, ad conscrvationem conservationem universi pertinere et ex iis esse, quae cursum mundi officiumque consummant. Placeat homini, quicquid deo placuit; ob hoc ipsum se suaque miretur, quod non potest vinci, quod mala ipsa sub se tenet, quod ratione, qua valentius nihil est, casum doloremque et iniuriam subigit.

Love reason! The love of it will arm you against the hardest things. Love of their cubs drives wild beasts onto the hunting-spears, and their ferocity and rash onset make them untamable; the desire of glory has sometimes sent youthful spirits into contempt of sword and fire alike; a mere appearance and shadow of virtue thrusts some into voluntary death. By how much reason is braver than all these, by how much steadier, by so much the more vehemently will it pass out through the very fears and dangers.

Ama rationem! Huius te amor contra durissima armabit. Feras catulorum amor in venabula inpingit 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.

"You accomplish nothing," he says, "by denying that there is any good but the honorable; this fortification will not make you safe and exempt from fortune. For you say that among goods are dutiful children, and a well-ordered country, and good parents; you cannot look upon their dangers untroubled. The siege of your country will disturb you, the death of your children, the slavery of your parents."

Nihil agitis, inquit, quod negatis ullum esse aliud honesto bonum; non faciet vos haec munitio tutos a fortuna et inmunes. Dicitis enim inter bona esse liberos pios et bene moratam patriam et parentes bonos; horum pericula non potestis spectare securi. Perturbabit vos obsidio patriae, liberorum mors, parentum servitus.

I will set down what is usually answered to this on our behalf; then I will add what I think should be answered besides. The case is different with those things which, when taken away, put some inconvenience in their own place; as good health, spoiled, is turned into bad; the keen edge of the eyes, extinguished, afflicts us with blindness; not only is swiftness lost when the hamstrings are cut, but feebleness comes in its place. This danger is not in the things we recounted a little before. Why? If I have lost a good friend, I have not perfidy to suffer in his place; nor, if I have buried good children, does impiety succeed in their room.

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 valitudo vitiata in malam transfertur; acies oculorum exstincta caecitate nos adficit; non tantum velocitas perit poplitibus incisis, sed debilitas pro illa subit. Hoc non est periculum in iis, quae paulo ante rettulimus. Quare? Si amicum bonum amisi, non est mihi pro illo perfidia patienda, nec si bonos liberos extuli, in illorum locum impietas succedit.

Next, there it is not the death of friends or of children, but of bodies. But a good perishes in one way only – if it passes into an evil; which nature does not allow, because all virtue and every work of virtue remains uncorrupted. Next, even if friends have perished, even if children proved and answering a father’s prayer, there is something that can fill their place. You ask what it is? That which had made them good too – virtue.

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

This suffers no place to be empty; it holds the whole mind, takes away the longing for all things; it alone is enough, for the force and origin of all goods is in it. What does it matter if running water is cut off and goes away, so long as the spring from which it had flowed is safe? You will not say that a life is juster with children safe than with them lost, nor more ordered, nor more prudent, nor more honorable; therefore not even better. The addition of friends does not make one wiser, their subtraction does not make one more foolish; therefore neither happier nor more wretched. As long as virtue is safe, you will not feel whatever has departed.

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 Auxerat, salvus est? Non dices vitam iustiorem salvis liberis quam amissis nec ordinatiorem nec prudentiorem nec honestiorem; ergo ne meliorem quidem. Non facit adieetio adiectio amicorum sapientiorem, non facit stultiorem detractio, ergo nec beatiorem aut miseriorem. Quamdiu virtus salva fuerit, non senties, quidquid abscesserit.

What then? Is he not happier, girt round with a throng of friends and children? Why should he not be? Because the highest good is neither broken down nor increased; it abides in its own measure, however fortune has behaved. Whether a long old age has fallen to him, or he is finished short of old age, the measure of the highest good is the same, however different the span of life.

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

Whether you draw a larger or a smaller circle pertains to its extent, not to its form. Though one stay long, and the other you blot out at once and rub away into the dust in which it was drawn, each was in the same form. What is right is not assessed by size, nor by number, nor by time; it can no more be drawn out than contracted. Cut down an honorable life from the count of a hundred years to as little as you wish, and compress it into a single day; it is equally honorable.

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 sol veris, 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.

Now virtue is poured out more widely – it governs kingdoms, cities, provinces, makes laws, fosters friendships, dispenses duties among kinsmen and children; now it is shut within the narrow bound of poverty, exile, bereavement. Yet it is no less if it is drawn down from a loftier height to a private station, from royal to lowly, from a public and spacious jurisdiction into the straits of a house or a corner.

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

It is equally great, even if it has withdrawn into itself, shut out on every side. For none the less is it of a great and upright spirit, of exact prudence, of unbending justice. Therefore it is equally happy. For that happiness is set in one place – in the mind itself: great, stable, tranquil; which cannot be brought about without the knowledge of things divine and human.

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, grande, stabile, tranquillum, quod sine scientia divinorum humanorumque non potest effici.

There follows that which I said I would answer. The wise man is not crushed by the loss of children, or of friends. For he bears their death with the same mind with which he awaits his own. He no more fears the latter than he grieves at the former. For virtue consists in agreement; all its works accord and chime with itself. This concord perishes if the mind, which ought to be lofty, is brought low by grief or longing. All trepidation and anxiety is dishonorable, and so is sluggishness in any act. For the honorable is free of care and unencumbered, undaunted, and stands ready for action.

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

What then? Will he not suffer something like a disturbance? Will not his color too change, and his face be agitated, and his limbs grow cold – and whatever else is done not at the mind’s command but by some thoughtless impulse of nature? I admit it; but there will remain with him the same conviction: that none of those things is an evil, nor worthy that a sound mind should fail before it. All that must be done, he does boldly and promptly.

Quid ergo? Non aliquid perturbationi simile patietur? Non et color eius mutabitur et vultus agitabitur et artus refrigescent? Et quicquid aliud non ex imperio animi, sed inconsulte quodam naturae impetu geritur. Fateor; sed manebit illi persuasio eadem, nihil illorum malum esse nec dignum, ad quod mens sana deficiat. Omnia, quae facienda erunt, audaciter facit et prompte.

For one might call this the property of folly: to do slothfully and stubbornly the things one does, and to drive the body one way, the mind another, and to be torn apart amid the most opposite motions. For on account of the very things by which it exalts and admires itself, folly is contemptible, and not even the things it boasts of does it do gladly. But if some evil is feared, then, while it awaits it, it is pressed by it just as if it had come, and whatever it fears to suffer, it already suffers by fear.

Hoc enim stultitiae proprium quis dixerit, ignave et contumaciter facere, quae faciat, et alio corpus inpellere, alio animum distrahique inter diversissimos motus. Nam propter illa ipsa, quibus extollit se miraturque, contempta est et ne illa quidem, quibus gloriatur, libenter facit. Si vero aliquod timetur malum, eo proinde, dum expectat, quasi venisset, urgetur et quicquid ne patiatur timet, iam metu patitur.

As in bodies the signs of a settling illness run before – for there is a certain nerveless sluggishness, and a weariness without any labor, and yawning, and a shudder running over the limbs – so the weak mind is shaken long before it is overwhelmed by evils. It takes them in advance and falls before its time. But what is more demented than to be wrung by things to come, and not to keep oneself for the torment, but to summon miseries to oneself and bring them near?

Quemadmodum in corporibus insidentis languoris 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?

These it is best to put off, if one cannot dispel them. Do you wish to know that no one ought to be tortured by the future? Whoever shall have heard that he must suffer torments after his fiftieth year is not disturbed – unless he has leapt over the intervening space and flung himself into that anxiety bound to come an age hence; in the same way it happens that minds gladly sick, and catching at causes of grief, are saddened by old and obliterated things. Both the things that are past and the things that are to come are absent; we feel neither. But there is no pain except from what you feel. Farewell.

Quas optimum est differre, si discutere non possit. Vis scire futuro neminem debere torqueri? Quicumque audierit post quinquagesimum annum sibi patienda supplicia, non perturbatum nisi si medium spatium transiluerit et se in illam saeculo post futuram sollicitudinem inmiserit; eodem modo fit, ut animos libenter aegros et captantes causas doloris vetera atque obliterata contristent. Fit quae praeterierunt et quae futura sunt, absunt; neutra sentimus. Non est autem nisi ex eo, quod sentias, dolor. Vale.

You complain that the letters I send you are too little polished. Why, who speaks with care, unless he means to speak affectedly? Such as my talk would be if we were sitting or walking together — unlabored and easy — such I want my letters to be, which have nothing fetched or feigned in them.

Minus tibi accuratas a me epistulas mitti querens. Quis enim accurate loquitur, nisi qui vult putide loqui? Qualis sermo meus esset, si una sederemus aut ambularemus, inlaboratus et facilis, tales esse epistulas meas volo, quae nihil habent accersitum nec fictum.

If it could be done, I would rather show you what I feel than tell it. Even if I were arguing a case, I would not stamp my foot or throw out my hand or raise my voice, but would leave such things to the orators, content to have carried my meanings across to you — meanings I would neither have dressed up nor cast away.

Si fieri posset, quid sentiam, ostendere quam loqui mallem. Etiam si disputarem, nec supploderem pedem nec manum iactarem nec attollerem vocem, sed ista oratoribus reliquissem, contentus sensus meos ad te pertulisse, quos nec exornassem nec abiecissem.

This one thing I should wish to prove to you plainly: that I feel everything I say, and not only feel it but love it. Men kiss a mistress one way, their children another; yet even in this embrace, so chaste and restrained, the affection shows clearly enough. I do not, by Hercules, want what is said about matters so great to be meager and dry; for philosophy does not renounce talent. Still, much labor ought not to be spent on words.

Hoc unum plane tibi adprobare vellem: omnia me illa sentire, quae dicerem, nec tantum sentire, sed amare. Aliter homines amicam, aliter liberos osculantur; tamen in hoc quoque amplexu tam sancto et moderato satis apparet adfectus. Non mehercules ieiuna esse et arida volo, quae de rebus tam magnis dicentur; neque enim philosophia ingenio renuntiat. Multum tamen operae inpendi verbis non oportet.

Let this be the sum of our purpose: let us say what we feel, and feel what we say; let speech be in concord with life. He has fulfilled his promise who is the same man whether you see him or hear him.

Haec sit propositi nostri summa: quod sentimus loquamur, quod loquimur sentiamus; concordet sermo cum vita. Ille promissum suum inplevit, qui, et cum videas illum et cum audias, idem est.

We shall see what sort of man he is, how great he is — let him be one man. Let our words not delight but profit. Yet if eloquence can be had without anxious effort, if it is ready to hand or costs little, let it attend and accompany the finest matters. Let it be such as to display the matter rather than itself. Other arts belong wholly to talent; here the business of the soul is being conducted.

Videbimus, qualis sit, quantus sit; unus sit. Non delectent verba nostra, sed prosint. Si tamen contingere eloquentia non sollicito potest, si aut parata est aut parvo constat, adsit et res pulcherrimus prosequatur. Sit talis, ut res potius quam se ostendat. Aliae artes ad ingenium totae pertinent, hic animi negotium agitur.

A sick man does not look for an eloquent doctor; but if it so falls out that the very man who can cure him also discourses elegantly on what must be done, he will take it kindly. Still, he will have no cause to congratulate himself for having chanced on a doctor who is also articulate. For this is just as if a skilled helmsman were also handsome.

Non quaerit aeger medicum eloquentem, sed, si ita conpetit, ut idem ille, qui sanare potest, compte de iis, quae facienda sunt, disserat, boni consulet. Non tamen erit, quare gratuletur sibi, quod inciderit in medicum etiam disertum. Hoc enim tale est, quale si peritus gubernator etiam formosus est.

Why do you scratch my ears? Why charm them? Something else is at stake: I must be cauterized, cut, put on a strict diet. For this you were called in. You have to cure a disease that is old, grave, and shared by all. You have as much on your hands as a doctor in a plague. Are you taken up with words? Rejoice long since, if you are equal to the realities. When will you learn the many things to be learned? When will you fix what you have learned so firmly in yourself that it cannot slip away? When will you put it to the test? For here, unlike the rest, it is not enough to have committed it to memory; it must be tried in the doing. He is not happy who knows these things, but he who does them.

Quid aures meas scabis? Quid oblectas? Aliud agitur; urendus, secandus, abstinendus sum. Ad haec adhibitus es. Curare debes morbum veterem, gravem, publicum. Tantum negotii habes, quantum in pestilentia medicus. Circa verba occupatus es? Iamdudum gaude, si sufficis rebus. Quando, quae multa disces? Quando, quae didiceris, adfiges tibi ita, ut excidere non possint? Quando illa experieris? Non enim ut cetera, memoriae tradidisse satis est; in opere temptanda sunt. Non est beatus, qui scit illa, sed qui facit.

What then? Are there no degrees below the sage? Is the drop straight down, sheer from wisdom? No, in my judgment. For the man making progress is indeed in the company of fools, yet he is separated from them by a great interval. Among those making progress, too, there are great distinctions. They are divided, as some hold, into three classes.

Quid ergo? Infra illum nulli gradus sunt? Statim a sapientia praeceps est? Non, ut existimo. Nam qui proficit, in numero quidem stultorum est, magno tamen intervallo ab illis diducitur. Inter ipsos quoque proficientes sunt magna discrimina. In tres classes, ut quibusdam placet, dividuntur:

First are those who do not yet possess wisdom but have already taken their stand in its neighborhood. Yet even what is near is still outside. You ask who these are? Those who have already laid aside all the passions and vices, who have learned what was to be embraced — but whose confidence is as yet untried. They do not yet have their good in use, and yet they can no longer fall back into the things they have fled. They are already at the point from which there is no slipping back, but this is not yet clear to them about themselves; as I remember writing in a certain letter, they do not know that they know. It has already fallen to them to enjoy their good, but not yet to trust it.

primi sunt, qui sapientiam nondum habent, sed iam in vicinia eius constiterant. Tamen etiam quod prope est, extra est. Qui sint hi quaeris? Qui omnes iam adfectus ac vitia posuerunt, quae erant complectenda, didicerunt, sed illis adhuc inexperta fiducia est. Bonum suum nondum in usu habent, iam tamen in illa, quae fugerunt, decidere non possunt. Iam ibi sunt, unde non est retro lapsus, sed hoc illis de se nondum liquet; quod in quadam epistula scripsisse me memini, scire se nesciunt. Iam contigit illis bono suo frui, nondum confidere.

Some so define this class of progressors I have spoken of that they say these men have already escaped the diseases of the mind, but not yet the passions, and still stand on slippery ground — since no one is beyond the danger of wickedness except the man who has shaken the whole of it off. And no one has shaken it off except the man who has taken on wisdom in its place.

Quidam hoc proficientium genus, de quo locutus sum, ita complectuntur, ut illos dicant iam effugisse morbos animi, adfectus nondum, et adhuc in lubrico stare, quia nemo sit extra periculum malitiae, nisi qui totam eam excussit. Nemo autem illam excussit, nisi qui pro illa sapientiam adsumpsit.

What the difference is between diseases of the mind and passions I have often said before. Now too I shall remind you: diseases are vices grown old and hard, like greed, like ambition; these have entangled the mind too tightly and have begun to be its permanent evils. To define it briefly: a disease is a judgment, stubborn in its perversity, that things are very much to be sought which are to be sought only lightly. Or, if you prefer, let us define it thus: to press too hard after things to be sought lightly or not at all, or to hold at a great price things to be held at a small price or none.

Quid inter morbos animi intersit et adfectus, saepe iam dixi. Nunc quoque te admonebo: morbi sunt inveterata vitia et dura, ut avaritia, ut ambitio; nimio artius haec animum inplicuerunt et perpetua eius mala esse coeperunt. Ut breviter finiam, morbus est iudicium in pravo pertinax, tamquam valde expetenda sint, quae leviter expetenda sunt. Vel si mavis, ita finiamus: nimis inminere leviter petendis vel ex toto non petendis, aut in magno pretio habere in aliquo habenda vel in nullo.

Passions are movements of the mind that cannot be approved, sudden and violent, which, frequent and neglected, have made a disease — just as a single catarrh, not yet settled into a habit, brings on a cough, but one constant and of long standing brings on consumption. And so those who have made the most progress are beyond the diseases, though, standing next to the perfect man, they still feel the passions.

Adfectus sunt motus animi inprobabiles, subiti et concitati, qui frequentes neglectique fecere morbum, sicut destillatio una nec adhuc in morem adducta tussim facit, adsidua et vetus phthisin. Itaque qui plurimum profecere, extra morbos sunt, adfectus adhuc sentiunt perfecto proximi.

The second class is of those who have laid aside both the greatest evils of the mind and the passions, but in such a way that they have no sure possession of their own security. For they can slip back into the same things.

Secundum genus est eorum, qui et maxima animi mala et adfectus deposuerunt, sed ita, ut non sit illis securitatis suae certa possessio. Possunt enim in eadem relabi.

That third class is beyond many great vices, but not beyond all. It has escaped greed, but still feels anger; it is no longer troubled by lust, but still by ambition; it no longer covets, but still fears. And in fear itself it is firm enough against some things, but yields to others: it despises death, yet dreads pain.

Tertium illud genus extra multa et magna vitia est, sed non extra omnia. Effugit avaritiam, sed iram adhuc sentit; iam non sollicitatur libidine, etiamnunc ambitione; iam non concupiscit, sed adhuc timet. Et in ipso metu ad quaedam satis firmus est, quibusdam cedit. Mortem contemnit, dolorem reformidat.

Let us give some thought to this rank. It will go well with us if we are admitted to this number. The second degree is won only by great felicity of nature and great, unremitting application of study; but not even this third complexion is to be despised. Think how many evils you see about you; look how no abomination is without its precedent, how far wickedness advances by the day, how much is sinned in public and in private — you will understand that we achieve enough if we are not among the worst.

De hoc loco aliquid cogitemus. Bene nobiscum agetur, si in hunc admittimur numerum. Magna felicitate naturae magnaque et adsidua intentione studii secundus occupatur gradus; sed ne hic quidem contemnendus est color tertius. Cogita, quantum circa te videas malorum, aspice, quam nullum sit nefas sine exemplo, quantum cotidie nequitia proficiat, quantum publice privatimque peccetur; intelleges satis nos consequi, si inter pessimos non sumus.

"But I," you say, "hope that I can rise to a higher order as well." I would wish this for us rather than promise it; we are already preoccupied. We strive toward virtue while pulled apart among vices. I am ashamed to say it: we cultivate the honorable only so far as we have leisure. But what a great reward awaits, if we break off our preoccupations and our most clinging evils! Then neither desire nor fear will drive us.

Ego vero, inquis, spero me posse et amplioris ordinis fieri. Optaverim hoc nobis magis quam promiserim; praeoccupati sumus. Ad virtutem contendimus inter vitia districti. Pudet dicere: honesta colimus, quantum vacat. At quam grande praemium expectat, si occupationes nostras et mala tenacissima abrumpimus. Non cupiditas nos, non timor pellet.

Unshaken by terrors, uncorrupted by pleasures, we shall dread neither death nor the gods; we shall know that death is no evil, and that the gods are not for evil. What does harm is as weak as what is harmed; the best things are free of any harmful power.

Inagitati terroribus, incorrupti voluptatibus nec mortem horrebimus nec deos; sciemus mortem malum non esse, deos malo non esse. Tam inbecillum est quod nocet quam cui nocetur, optima vi noxia carent.

There await us, if we ever climb out of this dregs into that height, sublime and lofty, the tranquillity of the mind and, once our errors are driven out, absolute freedom. You ask what that freedom is? To fear neither men nor gods; to want nothing base, nothing excessive; to hold over oneself the greatest power. It is a good beyond price to become one’s own. Farewell.

Expectant nos, si ex hac aliquando faece in illud evadimus sublime et excelsum, tranquillitas animi et expulsis erroribus absoluta libertas. Quaeris quae sit ista? Non homines timere, non deos; nec turpia velle nec nimia; in se ipsum habere maximam potestatem. Inaestimabile bonum est suum fieri. Vale.

You threaten me with enmity if I let you stay ignorant of anything I do day to day. See how openly I live with you: this too I will entrust to you. I am attending a philosopher — this is now the fifth day I have been going to his school and listening to him lecture from the eighth hour. "A fine age for it," you say. Fine indeed — why not? And what is more foolish than not to learn, just because you have not learned for so long?

Inimicitias mihi denuntias, si quicquam ex iis, quae cotidie facio, ignoraveris. Vide, quam simpliciter tecum vivam: hoc quoque tibi committam. Philosophum audio et quidem quintum iam diem habeo, ex quo in scholam eo et ab octava disputantem audio. Bona, inquis, aetate. Quidni bona? Quid autem stultius est quam, quia diu non didiceris, non discere?

What then? Shall I do the same as the dandies and the young men? It goes well enough with me if this is the one thing that disgraces my old age. This school admits men of every age. Are we to grow old only to follow the young? Shall I, an old man, go to the theater and be carried to the circus and let no matched pair fight it out without me — and yet blush to go to a philosopher?

Quid ergo? Idem faciam, quod trossuli et iuvenes? Bene mecum agitur, si hoc unum senectutem meam dedecct dedecet. Omnis aetatis homines haec schola admittit. In hoc senescamus, ut iuvenes sequamur? In theatrum senex ibo et in circum deferar et nullum par sine me depugnabit ad philosophum ire erubescam?

One must learn as long as one is ignorant — or, if we trust the proverb, as long as one lives. And nothing fits this saying better than this: one must learn how to live as long as one lives. Yet there too I teach something. You ask what I teach? That even an old man must keep learning.

Tamdiu discendum est, quamdiu nescias; si proverbio credimus, quamdiu vivas. Nec ulli hoc rei magis convenit quam huic: tamdiu discendum est, quemadmodum vivas, quamdiu vivas. Ego tamen illic aliquid et doceo. Quaeris, quid doceam? Etiam seni esse discendum.

But I am ashamed of the human race every time I enter the school. As you know, to reach Metronax’s house one must pass the very theater of the Neapolitans. That is packed, and with enormous zeal it is judged who is a good piper; the Greek trumpeter and the herald draw their crowd too. But in that place where a good man is sought, where a good man is learned, the fewest sit — and these seem to most people to have no good business to occupy them; they are called silly and idle. Let that mockery be my lot: the abuse of the ignorant must be heard with an even mind, and the man advancing toward the honorable must despise contempt itself.

Pudet autem me generis humani, quotiens scholam intravi. Praeter ipsum theatrum Neapolitanorum, ut scis, transeundum est Metronactis petenti domum. Illud quidem fartum est et ingenti studio, quis sit pythaules bonus, iudicatur; habet tubicen quoque Graecus et praeco concursum. At in illo loco, in quo vir bonus quaeritur, in quo vir bonus discitur, paucissimi sedent, et hi plerisque videntur nihil boni negotii habere quod agant; inepti et inertes vocantur. Mihi contingat iste derisus; aequo animo audienda sunt inperitorum convicia et ad honesta vadenti contemnenda est ipse contemptus.

Press on, Lucilius, and make haste, lest it happen to you, as it has to me, that you learn only as an old man — nay, make all the more haste, since you have come late to a thing you could scarcely master fully even as an old man. "How much," you say, "shall I make progress?" As much as you attempt.

Perge, Lucili, et propera, tibi ne et ipsi accidat, quod mihi, ut senex discas; immo ideo magis propera, quoniam diu non adgressus es, quod perdiscere vix senex possis. Quantum, inquis, proficiam? Quantum temptaveris.

What are you waiting for? To no one has wisdom fallen by chance. Money will come unbidden, honor will be offered, influence and rank will perhaps be thrust upon you; but virtue will not light on you. It is not recognized by light effort or small labor — but it is worth the toil for one who will seize all goods at a single stroke. For there is one good, the honorable; in those other things, whatever pleases reputation, you will find nothing true, nothing certain.

Quid expectas? Nulli sapere casu obtigit. Pecunia veniet ultro, honor offeretur, gratia ac dignitas fortasse ingerentur tibi; virtus in te non incidet. Ne levi quidem opera aut parvo labore cognoscitur; sed est tanti laborare omnia bona semel occupaturo. Unum est enim bonum, quod honestum; in illis nihil invenies veri, nihil certi, quaecumque famae placent.

But why the one good is the honorable I will explain, since you judge that I treated it too little in my earlier letter, and think the matter was praised to you rather than proved — and I will draw what has been said into a narrow compass.

Quare autem unum sit bonum, quod honestum, dicam, quoniam parum me exsecutum priore epistula iudicas magisque hanc rem tibi laudatam quam probatam putas, et in artum, quae dicta sunt, contraham.

Everything is constituted by its own proper good. Fertility commends the vine, and the flavor of its wine; swiftness, the stag. You ask how strong of back the pack-animals are, whose one use is this — to carry a load. In a dog, scent comes first, if it must track wild beasts; speed, if it must run them down; boldness, if it must bite and close. In each thing, that ought to be best for which it is born, by which it is rated.

Omnia suo bono constant. Vitem fertilitas commendat et sapor vini, velocitas cervum. Quam fortia dorso iumenta sint quaeris, quorum hic unus est usus, sarcinam ferre. In cane sagacitas prima est, si investigare debet feras, cursus, si consequi, audacia, si mordere et invadere. Id in quoque optimum esse debet, cui nascitur, quo censetur.

In a man, what is best? Reason; by this he goes before the animals and follows the gods. Perfected reason, then, is his proper good; the rest he shares with the animals and even with plants. He is strong — so are lions. He is handsome — so are peacocks. He is swift — so are horses. I do not say that in all these he is outdone. I am not asking what is greatest in him, but what is his own. He has a body — so do trees. He has impulse and voluntary movement — so do beasts and worms. He has a voice — but how much clearer the dogs’, how much sharper the eagles’, how much deeper the bulls’, how much sweeter and more supple the nightingale’s?

In homine optimum quid est? Ratio; hac antecedit animalia, deos sequitur. Ratio ergo perfecta proprium bonum est, cetera illi cum animalibus satisque communia sunt. Valet; et leones. Formosus est; et pavones. Velox est; et equi. Non dico, in his omnibus vincitur. Non quaero, quid in se maximum habeat, sed quid suum. Corpus habet; et arbores. Habet impetum ac motum voluntarium; et bestiae et vermes. Habet vocem; sed quanto clariorem canes, acutiorem aquilae, graviorem tauri, dulciorem mobilioremque luscinii?

What is proper to man? Reason. This, set straight and brought to completion, has filled out his happiness. Therefore, if every thing, when it has perfected its own good, is praiseworthy and has reached the end of its nature — and man’s own good is reason — then if he has perfected this, he is praiseworthy and has touched the end of his nature. This perfected reason is called virtue, and it is the same as the honorable.

Quid in homine proprium? Ratio. Haec recta et consummata felicitatem hominis implevit. Ergo si omnis res, cum bonum suum perfecit, laudabilis est et ad finem naturae suae pervenit; homini autem suum bonum ratio est; si hanc perfecit, laudabilis est et finem naturae suae tetigit. Haec ratio perfecta virtus vocatur eademque honestum est.

And so that is the one good in man which alone is man’s. For now we are not asking what the good is, but what man’s good is. If man has nothing else that is his own but reason, this will be his one good — a good to be weighed against all the rest. If a man is bad, I suppose he will be disapproved; if good, approved. That, then, is the first and only thing in man by which he is approved or disapproved.

Id itaque unum bonum est in homine, quod unum hominis est. Nunc enim non quaerimus, quid sit bonum, sed quid sit hominis bonum. Si nullum aliud est hominis quam ratio, haec erit unum eius bonum, sed pensandum cum omnibus. Si sit aliquis malus, puto improbabitur; si bonus, puto probabitur. Id ergo in homine primum solumque est, quo et probatur et inprobatur.

You do not doubt that this is a good; you doubt whether it is the only good. If a man has everything else — health, riches, many ancestral busts, a thronged hall — but is admittedly bad, you will disapprove of him. Likewise, if a man has none of the things I have listed — is short of money, of a crowd of clients, of noble birth and a line of grandfathers and great-grandfathers — but is admittedly good, you will approve of him. Therefore this is the one good of man: the man who has it, even if he is stripped of all the rest, is to be praised; the man who lacks it, amid the abundance of all the rest, is condemned and cast aside.

Non dubitas, an hoc sit bonum; dubitas an solum bonum sit. Si quis omnia alia habeat, valetudinem, divitias, imagines multas, frequens atrium, sed malus ex confesso sit, inprobabis illum. Item si quis nihil quidem eorum, quae rettuli, habeat, deficiatur pecunia, clientium turba, nobilitate et avorum proavorumque serie, sed ex confesso bonus sit, probabis illum. Ergo hoc unum est bonum hominis, quod qui habet, etiam si aliis destituitur laudandus est, quod qui non habet, in omnium aliorum copia damnatur ac reicitur.

The condition of things is the same as that of men. A ship is called good not because it is painted with costly colors, nor because it has a silver or golden beak, nor because its tutelary image is carved in ivory, nor because it is freighted with treasuries and royal wealth, but because it is steady and firm, tight with joints that keep out the water, solid to bear the sea’s assault, obedient to the helm, swift, and unmoved by the wind.

Quae condicio rerum, eadem hominum est. Navis bona dicitur non quae pretiosis coloribus picta est nec cui argenteum aut aureum rostrum est nec cuius tutela ebore caelata est nec quae fiscis atque opibus regiis pressa est, sed stabilis et firma et iuncturis aquam excludentibus spissa, ad ferendum incursum maris solida, gubernaculo parens, velox et non sentiens ventum.

You will call a sword good not because its baldric is gilded, nor because its scabbard is set off with gems, but because it has an edge fine for cutting and a point that will break through every defense. Of a straightedge one asks not how beautiful it is, but how straight. Each thing is praised for that to which it is suited, which is proper to it.

Gladium bonum dices non cui auratus est balteus nec cuius vagina gemmis distinguitur, sed cui et ad secandum subtilis acies est et mucro munimentum omne rupturus. Regula non quam formosa, sed quam recta sit quaeritur. Eo quidque laudatur, cui comparatur, quod illi proprium est.

So in a man too it matters nothing how much he plows, how much he lends at interest, by how many he is greeted, on how costly a couch he reclines, from how translucent a cup he drinks — but how good he is. And he is good if his reason is unfolded and straight and fitted to the will of his own nature.

Ergo in homine quoque nihil ad rem pertinet, quantum aret, quantum faeneret, a quam multis salutetur, quam pretioso incumbat lecto, quam perlucido poculo bibat, sed quam bonus sit. Bonus autem est, si ratio eius explicita et recta est et ad naturae suae voluntatem accommodata.

This is called virtue; this is the honorable and the one good of man. For since reason alone perfects man, reason alone, when perfected, makes him happy; and this is the one good, by which alone he is made happy. We say that those things too are goods which proceed from virtue and are gathered from it — that is, all its works; but virtue itself is the one good, for the reason that none of them exists without it.

Haec vocatur virtus, hoc est honestum et unicum hominis bonum. Nam cum sola ratio perficiat hominem, sola ratio perfecta beatum facit; hoc autem unum bonum est, quo uno beatus edicitur. Dicimus et illa bona esse, quae a virtute profecta contractaque sunt, id est opera eius omnia; sed ideo unum ipsa bonum est, quia nullum sine illa est.

If every good is in the soul, then whatever strengthens, exalts, enlarges it, is a good; and virtue makes the soul stronger and loftier and larger. For the other things, which inflame our desires, also press the soul down and undermine it, and, while they seem to lift it, puff it up and fool it with much emptiness. Therefore the one good is that by which the soul is made better.

Si omne in animo bonum est, quicquid illum confirmat, extollit, amplificat, bonum est; validiorem autem animum et excelsiorem et ampliorem facit virtus. Nam cetera, quae cupiditates nostras inritant, deprimunt quoque animum et labefaciunt et, cum videntur adtollere, inflant ac multa vanitate deludunt. Ergo unum id bonum est, quo melior animus efficietur.

All the actions of a whole life are governed by regard for the honorable and the base; toward these two the reckoning of what to do and not do is directed. What this means I will say: a good man will do what he judges he can do honorably — he will do it even if it is laborious, even if it is costly, even if it is dangerous; again, what is base he will not do, not even if it brings money, not even if pleasure, not even if power. From the honorable nothing will deter him; toward the base nothing will entice him.

Omnes actiones totius vitae honesti ac turpis respectu temperantur; ad haec faciendi et non faciendi ratio derigitur. Quid sit hoc, dicam: vir bonus quod honeste se facturum putaverit, faciet, etiam si laboriosum erit, faciet, etiam si damnosum erit, faciet, etiam si periculosum erit; rursus quod turpe erit, non faciet, etiam si pecuniam adferet, etiam si voluptatem, etiam si potentiam. Ab honesto nulla re deterrebitur, ad turpia nulla invitabitur.

Therefore, if he is going at all costs to follow the honorable, at all costs to avoid the base, and in every act of life to look to these two — counting no other thing a good than the honorable, no other thing an evil than the base — if virtue alone is uncorrupted and alone keeps to its own tenor, then virtue is the one good, to which it can no longer happen that it cease to be a good. It escapes the danger of change: folly creeps up to wisdom, but wisdom does not roll back into folly.

Ergo si honestum utique secuturus est, turpe utique vitaturus et in omni actu vitae spectaturus haec duo, nec aliud bonum quam honestum nec aliud malum quam turpe, si una indepravata virtus est et sola permanet tenoris sui; unum est bonum virtus, cui iam accidere, ne sit bonum, non potest. Mutationis periculum effugit; stultitia ad sapientiam erepit, sapientia in stultitiam non revolvitur.

I have said, if you happen to remember, that many men have trampled on the things commonly craved and dreaded, by an unreflecting impulse. One has been found to lay his hand in the flames, whose laughter the torturer could not break off; one who let fall no tear at the funeral of his children; one who met death without trembling. For love, anger, desire have demanded dangers for themselves. If a brief obstinacy of mind, roused by some goad, can do this, how much more can virtue, which is strong not by impulse nor of a sudden, but evenly, and whose strength is perpetual?

Dixi, si forte meministi, concupita volgo et formidata inconsulto impetu plerosque calcasse. Inventus est, qui flammis inponeret manum, cuius risum non interrumperet tortor, qui in funere liberorum lacrimam non mitteret, qui morti non trepidus occurreret. Amor enim, ira, cupiditas pericula depoposcerunt. Quod potest brevis obstinatio animi aliquo stimulo excitata, quanto magis virtus, quae non ex impetu nec subito, sed aequaliter valet, cui perpetuum robur est.

It follows that the things often despised by the unreflecting, and always by the wise, are neither goods nor evils. The one good, then, is virtue herself, who marches proudly between this fortune and that, with great contempt for both.

Sequitur, ut quae ab inconsultis saepe contemnuntur, a sapientibus semper, ea nec bona sint nec mala. Unum ergo bonum ipsa virtus est, quae inter hanc fortunam et illam superba incedit cum magno utriusque contemptu.

If you admit this opinion — that there is some good besides the honorable — there is no virtue that will not be in difficulty. For none can be maintained if it looks to anything outside itself. And if it does, it fights against reason, from which the virtues come, and against truth, which does not exist without reason. But whatever opinion fights against truth is false.

Si hanc opinionem receperis, aliquid bonum esse praeter honestum, nulla non virtus laborabit. Nulla enim optineri poterit, si quicquam extra se respexerit. Quod si est, rationi repugnat, ex qua virtutes sunt, et veritati, quae sine ratione non est. Quaecumque autem opinio veritati repugnat, falsa est.

You must grant that a good man is of the highest reverence toward the gods. And so, whatever befalls him, he will bear with an even mind; for he will know that it has befallen by the divine law by which all things proceed. And if that is so, he will have one good, the honorable; for in this it consists — to obey the gods, not to flare up at sudden blows, not to bewail his lot, but to receive his fate patiently and do what is commanded.

Virum bonum concedas necesse est summae pietatis erga deos esse. Itaque quicquid illi accidit, aequo animo sustinebit; sciet enim id accidisse lege divina, qua universa procedunt. Quod si est, unum illi bonum erit, quod honestum; in hoc enim positum est et parere dis nec excandescere ad subita nec deplorare sortem suam, sed patienter excipere fatum et facere imperata.

If there is any good besides the honorable, a greed for life will pursue us, a greed for the things that furnish life — which is intolerable, boundless, aimless. The only good, then, is the honorable, which has a measure.

Si ullum aliud est bonum quam honestum, sequetur nos aviditas vitae, aviditas rerum vitam instruentium, quod est intolerabile, infinitum, vagum. Solum ergo bonum est honestum, cui modus est.

We have said that men’s life would be happier than the gods’, if those things are goods which the gods have no use of — money, say, and honors. Add now that, if souls released from the body do survive, a happier state remains for them than while they are engaged in the body. And yet, if those things are goods which we use by means of the body, then for souls sent forth it will be worse — which runs against belief: that souls shut in and besieged should be happier than souls free and given over to the universe.

Diximus futuram hominum feliciorem vitam quam deorum, si ea bona sunt, quorum nullus dis usus est, tamquam pecunia, honores. Adice nunc, quod si modo solutae corporibus animae manent, felicior illis status restat quam est, dum versantur in corpore. Atqui si ista bona sunt, quibus per corpora utimur, emissis erit peius, quod contra fidem est, feliciores esse liberis et in universum datis clausas et obsessas.

This too I had said: if those things are goods which fall to a man just as they fall to dumb animals, then dumb animals too will lead a happy life — which can in no way be. All things must be endured for the sake of the honorable — which would not have to be done, if there were any good besides the honorable. Though I had treated these matters more broadly in the earlier letter, I have compressed them and run through them briefly.

Illud quoque dixeram, si bona sunt ea, quae tam homini contingunt quam mutis animalibus, et muta animalia beatam vitam actura; quod fieri nullo modo potest. Omnia pro honesto patienda sunt; quod non erat faciendum, si esset ullum aliud bonum quam honestum. Haec quamvis latius exsecutus essem priore epistula, constrinxi et breviter percucurri.

But such an opinion will never seem true to you unless you lift up your mind and ask yourself whether, if the situation demanded that you die for your country and redeem the safety of all the citizens with your own, you would stretch out your neck not only patiently but even gladly. If you would do this, there is no other good. For you give up everything in order to have this. See how great the power of the honorable is: you will die for the commonwealth — and at once, the moment you know it must be done.

Numquam autem vera tibi opinio talis videbitur, nisi animum adleves et te ipse interroges, si res exegerit, ut pro patria moriaris et salutem omnium civium tua redimas, an porrecturus sis cervicem non tantum patienter, sed etiam libenter. Si hoc facturus es, nullum aliud bonum est. Omnia enim relinquis, ut hoc habeas. Vide quanta vis honesti sit: pro re publica morieris, etiam si statim facturus hoc eris, cum scieris tibi esse faciendum.

Sometimes from the finest deed a great joy is taken, even in a scant and brief span; and although no fruit of the completed work belongs to the man who is dead and withdrawn from human affairs, yet the very contemplation of the work to come delights him, and the brave and just man, when he has set before himself the prizes of his death — his country’s freedom, the safety of all for whom he pays down his life — is in the highest pleasure and enjoys his own peril.

Interdum ex re pulcherrima magnum gaudium etiam exiguo tempore ac brevi capitur, et quamvis fructus operis peracti nullus ad defunctum exemptumque rebus humanis pertineat, ipsa tamen contemplatio futuri operis iuvat, et vir fortis ac iustus, cum mortis suae pretia ante se posuit, libertatem patriae, salutem omnium, pro quibus dependit animam, in summa voluptate est et periculo suo fruitur.

But even the man from whom this joy is snatched — the joy that the handling of the greatest and last of works affords — will leap into death without hesitation, content to act rightly and dutifully. Set before him now many things to dissuade him; say: "An early oblivion will follow your deed, and little gratitude in the citizens’ esteem"; he will answer you: "All those things lie outside my work. I contemplate the work itself. I know that this is honorable. And so wherever it leads and calls, I come."

Sed ille quoque, cui hoc gaudium eripitur, quod tractatio operis maximi et ultimi praestat, nihil cunctatus desiliet in mortem facere recte pieque contentus. Oppone etiamnunc illi multa quae dehortentur, dic: factum tuum matura sequetur oblivio et parum grata existimatio civium; respondebit tibi: ista omnia extra opus meum sunt. Ego ipsum contemptor. Hoc esse honestum scio. Itaque quocumque ducit ac vocat, venio.

This, then, is the one good, which not only the perfected mind but also the noble mind of good natural stamp perceives; the rest are slight, changeable. And so they are possessed with anxiety. Even if, with fortune favoring, they have been heaped up into one place, they lie heavy upon their owners and always press them, and sometimes crush them too.

Hoc ergo unum bonum est, quod non tantum perfectus animus, sed generosus quoque et indolis bonae sentit; cetera levia sunt, mutabilia. Itaque sollicite possidentis. Etiam si favente fortuna in unum congesta sunt, dominis suis incubant gravia et illos semper premunt, aliquando et inlidunt.

No one of those you see clad in purple is happy, no more than those to whom a play assigns a scepter and a cloak on the stage; before the watching crowd they have strutted tall and high-buskined, but the moment they go off, they are unshod and shrink to their own stature. No one of those whom riches and honors set on a higher pinnacle is great. Why, then, does he seem great? Because you measure him together with his pedestal. A dwarf is not great, though he stand on a mountain; a colossus will keep its greatness, even if it stand in a well.

Nemo ex istis, quos purpuratos vides, felix est, non magis quam ex illis, quibus sceptrum et chlamydem in scaena fabulae adsignant; cum praesente populo lati incesserunt et coturnati, simul exierunt, excalceantur et ad staturam suam redeunt. Nemo istorum, quos divitiae honoresque in altiore fastigio ponunt, magnus est. Quare ergo magnus videtur? Cum basi illum sua metiris. Non est magnus pumilio, licet in monte constiterit; colossus magnitudinem suam servabit, etiam si steterit in puteo.

This is the error we labor under, this is how we are deceived: we value no one for what he is, but add to him the things with which he is decked out. And yet, when you wish to make a true assessment of a man and to know what he is, look at him naked; let him lay down his patrimony, lay down his honors and the other lies of fortune, strip off the body itself. Look at the soul — what sort and how great it is, great by what is another’s or by its own.

Hoc laboramus errore, sic nobis imponitur, quod neminem aestimamus eo, quod est, sed adicimus illi et ea, quibus adornatus est. Atqui cum voles veram hominis aestimationem inire et scire, qualis sit, nudum inspice; ponat patrimonium, ponat honores et alia fortunae mendacia, corpus ipsum exuat. Animum intuere, qualis quantusque sit, alieno an suo magnus.

No new face of hardships, O maiden, rises before me, none unforeseen; I have foreseen them all, and gone through them within my own mind.

Non ulla laborum, O virgo, nova mi facies inopinave surgit; Omnia praecepi atque animo mecum ipse peregi.

The blow of an evil thought through beforehand comes softened. But to the foolish, and to those who trust in fortune, every face of things seems new and unlooked-for; and with the inexperienced, a great part of an evil is its newness. That you may know this: the things they had thought harsh, they bear more bravely once they have grown used to them.

Praecogitati mali mollis ictus venit. At stultis et fortunae credentibus omnis videtur nova rerum et inopinata facies; magna autem pars est apud imperitos mali novitas. Hoc ut scias, ea quae putaverant aspera, fortius, cum adsuevere, patiuntur.

Therefore the wise man accustoms himself to coming evils, and the things that others make light by long suffering, he makes light by long forethought. We hear sometimes the voices of the inexperienced saying, "I knew this was in store for me"; the wise man knows that everything is in store for him. Whatever has happened, he says: "I knew it." Farewell.

Ideo sapiens adsuescit futuris malis et quae alii diu patiendo levia faciunt, hic levia facit diu cogitando. Audimus aliquando voces imperitorum dicentium: sciebam hoc mihi restare; sapiens scit sibi omnia restare. Quicquid factum est, dicit: sciebam. Vale.

Suddenly today the Alexandrian ships came into view — the ones usually sent ahead to announce the coming of the fleet that follows; they call them the mail-boats. Campania is glad to see them; the whole crowd takes its stand on the moles of Puteoli and picks out the Alexandrians, even in a great press of ships, by the very cut of their sails. For they alone are allowed to spread the topsail, which on the open sea all ships carry.

Subito nobis hodie Alexandrinae naves apparuerunt, quae praemitti solent et nuntiare secuturae classis adventum; tabellarias vocant. Gratus illarum Campaniae aspectus est; omnis in pilis Puteolorum turba consistit et ex ipso genere velorum Alexandrinas quamvis in magna turba navium intellegit. Solis enim licet siparum intendere, quod in alto omnes habent naves.

High from her storm-swept peak Pallas keeps watch.

Alta procelloso speculatur vertice Pallas,

In this general rush to the shore I felt great pleasure from my own laziness: though I was about to receive letters from my people, I was in no hurry to know what state my affairs were in there, or what news they brought. For a long time now nothing of mine is lost and nothing gained. Even if I were not an old man, I ought to have felt this; but now, far more. However little I had, even so there would be more travel-money left to me now than road — especially since we have set out on a road there is no need to travel to the end.

In hoc omnium discursu properandum ad litus magnam ex pigritia mea sensi voluptatem, quod epistulas meorum accepturus non properavi scire, quis illic esset rerum mearum status, quid adferrent; olim iam nec perit quicquam milli mihi nec adquiritur. Hoc, etiam si senex non essem, fuerat sentiendum; nunc vero multo magis. Quantulumcumque haberem, tamen plus iam mihi superesset viatici quam viae, praesertim cum eam viam simus ingressi, quam peragere non est necesse.

A journey will be incomplete if you halt midway, or short of the place you were making for; a life is not incomplete, if it is honorable. Wherever you leave off, if you leave off well, it is whole. But often one must leave off bravely, and not for the greatest of reasons; for the reasons that hold us here are not the greatest either.

Iter inperfectum erit, si in media parte aut citra petitum locum steteris; vita non est inperfecta, si honesta est. Ubicumque desines, si bene desines, tota est. Saepe autem et fortiter desinendum est et non ex maximis causis; nam nec eae maximae sunt, quae nos tenent.

Tullius Marcellinus, whom you knew very well — a quiet young man, and an old man early — was seized by a disease that was not incurable, but long and troublesome and exacting much, and he began to deliberate about death. He called together a number of friends. Each one, either because he was timid, urged on him what he would have urged on himself, or, being a flatterer and fawner, gave the advice he suspected would be more welcome to the man deliberating.

Tullius Marcellinus, quem optime noveras, adulescens quietus et cito senex, morbo et non insanabili correptus sed longo et molesto et multa imperante, coepit deliberare de morte. Convocavit complures amicos. Unusquisque aut quia timidus erat, id illi suadebat, quod sibi suasisset, aut quia adulator et blandus, id consilium dabat, quod deliberanti gratius fore suspicabatur;

But a Stoic friend of ours, an excellent man and — to praise him in the words by which he deserves to be praised — brave and vigorous, seems to me to have exhorted him best. For he began thus: "Do not torment yourself, my Marcellinus, as though you were deliberating about some great matter. Living is no great thing; all your slaves live, all the animals live; the great thing is to die honorably, wisely, bravely. Consider how long you have now been doing the same things: food, sleep, lust — round this circle one runs. To want to die may belong not only to the wise man, or the brave, or the wretched, but even to the man who is merely fed up."

amicus noster Stoicus, homo egregius et, ut verbis illum, quibus laudari dignus est, laudem, vir fortis ac strenuus, videtur mihi optime illum cohortatus. Sic enim coepit: Noli, mi Marcelline, torqueri, tamquam de re magna deliberes. Non est res magna vivere; omnes servi tui vivunt, omnia animalia; magnum est honeste mori, prudenter, fortiter. Cogita, quamdiu iam idem facias: cibus, somnus, libido, per hunc circulum curritur. Mori velle non tantum prudens aut fortis aut miser, etiam fastidiosus potest.

He needed no persuader, but a helper; the slaves were unwilling to obey. First the Stoic took their fear from them and showed them that a household incurs danger only when it is uncertain whether the master’s death was voluntary; otherwise it sets as bad an example to kill a master as to prevent him from dying.

Non opus erat suasore illi, sed adiutore; servi parere nolebant. Primum detraxit illis metum et indicavit tunc familiam periculum adire, cum incertum esset, an mors domini voluntaria fuisset; alioqui tam mali exempli esse occidere dominum quam prohibere.

Then he reminded Marcellinus himself that it is not inhumane that, just as when a dinner is finished the leftovers are shared among the bystanders, so when a life is finished something should be handed to those who had been the servants of that whole life. Marcellinus was of easy temper and generous, even when it came out of his own purse. And so he distributed small sums to the weeping slaves and consoled them besides.

Deinde ipsum Marcellinum admonuit non esse inhumanum, quemadmodum cena peracta reliquiae circumstantibus dividantur, sic peracta vita aliquid porrigi iis, qui totius vitae ministri fuissent. Erat Marcellinus facilis animi et liberalis, etiam cum de suo fieret. Minutas itaque summulas distribuit Sentibus servis et illos ultro consolatus est.

He had no need of steel, no need of blood; for three days he fasted, and ordered a tent set up in his very bedroom. Then a bath-tub was brought in, in which he lay a long while, and as warm water was poured in again and again he gradually failed — not, as he said, without a certain pleasure, the kind that a gentle dissolving tends to bring, not unknown to those of us whom the senses have at some time left.

Non fuit illi opus ferro, non sanguine; triduo abstinuit et in ipso cubiculo poni tabernaculum iussit. Solium deinde inlatum est, in quo diu iacuit et calda subinde suffusa paulatim defecit, ut aiebat, non sine quadam voluptate, quam adferre solet lenis dissolutio non inexperta nobis, quos aliquando liquit animus.

I have wandered off into a little story not unwelcome to you. For you will learn that your friend’s exit was neither hard nor wretched. Though he took his own death upon himself, yet he passed away most gently and slipped out of life. And this little tale will not even be useless. For necessity often demands such examples. Often we ought to die and are unwilling; we die and are unwilling.

In fabellam excessi non ingratam tibi. Exitum enim amici tui cognosces non difficilem nec miserum. Quamvis enim mortem sibi consciverit, tamen mollissime excessit et vita elapsus est. Sed ne inutilis quidem haec fabella fuerit. Saepe enim talia exempla necessitas exigit. Saepe debemus mori nec volumus, morimur nec volumus.

No one is so ignorant as not to know that one must die some day; yet when it draws near, he shuffles, trembles, weeps. Will he not seem to you the most foolish of all, the man who wept because he had not lived a thousand years before? Equally foolish is the man who weeps because he will not be alive a thousand years hence. The two are alike: you will not be, and you were not. Both spans of time are another’s.

Nemo tam imperitus est, ut nesciat quandoque moriendum; tamen cum prope accessit, tergiversatur, tremit, plorat. Nonne tibi videbitur stultissimus omnium, qui flevit, quod ante annos mille non vixerat? Aeque stultus est, qui fiet, quod post annos mille non vivet. Haec paria sunt; non eris nec fuisti. Utrumque tempus alienum est.

Cease to hope that the fates of the gods are bent by prayer.

Desine fata deum flecti sperare precando.

How great a people of the dying will follow you? How great a throng will keep you company? You would be braver, I suppose, if many thousands were dying alongside you; and yet, at this very moment in which you hesitate to die, many thousands of men and of animals are sending out their breath in one way or another. Did you really think you would never arrive at that toward which you were always going? No journey is without its end.

Quantus te populus moriturorum sequetur? Quantus comitabitur? Fortior, ut opinor, esses, si multa milia tibi commorerentur; atqui multa milia et hominum et animalium hoc ipso momento, quo tu mori dubitas, animam variis generibus emittunt. Tu autem non putabas te aliquando ad id perventurum, ad quod semper ibas? Nullum sine exitu iter est.

Do you suppose I am now going to bring you examples of great men? I will bring you examples of boys. That Spartan is on record who, still under age, when taken captive kept crying "I will not be a slave" in that Doric tongue of his — and he made his word good: the moment he was ordered to perform a slave’s degrading service (he was being told to fetch a chamber-pot), he dashed his head against the wall and shattered it.

Exempla nunc magnorum virorum me tibi iudicas relaturum? Puerorum referam. Lacon ille memoriae traditur inpubis adhuc, qui captus clamabat non serviam sua illa Dorica lingua, et verbis fidem inposuit; ut primum iussus est servili fungi et contumelioso ministerio, adferre enim vas obscenum iubebatur, inlisum parieti caput rupit.

So near is freedom; and does anyone still serve? Would you not rather your own son perished thus than grew old through sloth? Why, then, should you be disturbed, if to die bravely is something even a boy can do? Suppose you are unwilling to follow; you will be led. Make a thing your own that lies in another’s power. Will you not take up a boy’s spirit, and say "I do not serve"? Unhappy man, you serve men, you serve things, you serve life. For life, if the courage to die is absent, is slavery.

Tam prope libertas est; et servit aliquis? Ita non sic perire filium tuum malles quam per inertiam senem fieri? Quid ergo est, cur perturberis, si mori fortiter etiam puerile est? Puta nolle te sequi; duceris. Fac tui iuris, quod alieni est. Non sumes pueri spiritum, ut dicas non servio? Infelix, servis hominibus, servis rebus, servis vitae. Nam vita, si moriendi virtus abest, servitus est.

Have you anything left to wait for? The very pleasures that delay you and hold you back, you have used up. None is new to you, none is not already hateful through the surfeit itself. You know the taste of wine, the taste of mead. It makes no difference whether a hundred jars or a thousand pass through your bladder; you are a strainer. You know perfectly what an oyster tastes like, what a mullet; your luxury has left nothing untouched, in reserve for the years to come — and yet these are the things from which you are torn away unwilling.

Ecquid habes, propter quod expectes? Voluptates ipsas, quae te morantur ac retinent, consumpsisti. Nulla tibi nova est, nulla non iam odiosa ipsa satietate. Quis sit vini, quis mulsi sapor, scis. Nihil interest, centum per vesicam tuam an mille amphorae transeant; saccus es. Quid sapiat ostreum, quid mullus, optime nosti; nihil tibi luxuria tua in futuros annos intactum reservavit; atqui haec sunt, a quibus invitus divelleris.

What else is there whose loss would grieve you? Friends? For who can be a friend to you? Your country? Do you value it so highly as to dine later for its sake? The sun? Which, if you could, you would put out. For what have you ever done worthy of the daylight? Confess that it is not from longing for the senate-house, nor the forum, nor for nature herself that you grow slower to die; you leave the meat-market unwilling, in which you have left nothing behind.

Quid est aliud, quod tibi eripi doleas? Amicos? Quis enim tibi potest amicus esse? Patriam? Tanti enim illam putas, ut tardius cenes? Solem? Quem, si posses, extingueres. Quid enim umquam fecisti luce dignum? Confitere non curiae te, non fori, non ipsius rerum naturae desiderio tardiorem ad moriendum fieri; invitus relinquis macellum, in quo nihil reliquisti.

You fear death; yet how you despise it in the middle of a mushroom-feast! You want to live: but do you know how? You fear to die; and what then — is that life of yours not death? When Gaius Caesar was passing along the Latin Way, one of a gang of prisoners, his old beard hanging down to his chest, begged him for death; "Why," said Caesar, "are you alive now?" This is what must be answered to those whom death is coming to relieve: "You fear to die; why — are you alive now?"

Mortem times; at quomodo illam media boletatione contemnis? Vivere vis; scis enim? Mori times; quid porro? Ista vita non mors est? C Caesar, cum illum transeuntem per Latinam viam unus ex custodiarum agmine demissa usque in pectus vetere barba rogaret mortem: nunc enim, inquit, vivis? Hoc istis respondendum est, quibus succursura mors est: mori times; nunc enim vivis?

"But I," he says, "want to live, for I do many things honorably. I leave unwilling the duties of life, which I discharge faithfully and industriously." What? Do you not know that to die is itself one of life’s duties? You leave no duty behind; for there is no fixed number that you are bound to complete.

Sed ego, inquit, vivere volo, qui multa honeste facio. Invitus relinquo officia vitae, quibus fideliter et industrie fungor. Quid? Tu nescis unum esse ex vitae officiis et mori? Nullum officium relinquis. Non enim certus numerus, quem debeas explere, finitur.

No life is not short. For if you look to the nature of things, even Nestor’s life is short, and Sattia’s — who ordered it inscribed on her monument that she had lived ninety-nine years. You see someone boasting of a long old age. Who could have borne her, had it fallen to her to complete a hundred? As with a play, so with a life: what matters is not how long, but how well it has been acted. It is of no importance at what point you stop. Stop wherever you will; only set a good closing line upon it. Farewell.

Nulla vita est non brevis. Nam si ad naturam rerum respexeris, etiam Nestoris et Sattiae brevis est, quae inscribi monumento suo iussit annis se nonaginta novem vixisse. Vides aliquem gloriari senectute longa. Quis illam ferre potuisset, si contigisset centesimum implere? Quomodo fabula, sic vita non quam diu, sed quam bene acta sit, refert. Nihil ad rem pertinet, quo loco desinas. Quocumque voles desine; tantum bonam clausulam inpone. Vale.

That you are harried by frequent catarrhs and slight fevers — the kind that follow long catarrhs once they have settled into a habit — distresses me the more because I have known this sort of ill health myself, which at the outset I made light of; my youth could still bear the injuries and carry itself stubbornly against diseases. Then I gave way and was brought to such a state that I dripped away entirely, reduced to the utmost leanness.

Vexari te destillationibus crebris ac febriculis, quae longas destillationes et in consuetudinem adductas secuntur, eo molestius mihi est, quia expertus sum hoc genus valetudinis, quod inter initia contempsi; poterat adhuc adulescentia iniurias ferre et se adversus morbos contumaciter gerere. Deinde succubui et eo perductus sum, ut ipse destillarem ad summam maciem deductus.

Often I conceived the impulse to break off my life; the old age of my most indulgent father held me back. For I considered not how bravely I could die, but how bravely he could not bear to lose me. And so I commanded myself to live. For sometimes even to live is a brave act.

Saepe impetum cepi abrumpendae vitae; patris me indulgentissimi senectus retinuit. Cogitavi enim non quam fortiter ego mori possem, sed quam ille fortiter desiderare non posset. Itaque imperavi mihi, ut viverem. Aliquando enim et vivere fortiter facere est.

What was then a comfort to me I will tell, once I have said this first: that these very things in which I found rest had the force of medicine. Honorable comforts turn into a remedy, and whatever has lifted the mind benefits the body too. Our studies were my salvation. To philosophy I credit it that I rose, that I recovered. To her I owe my life — and that is the least I owe her.

Quae mihi tunc fuerint solacio dicam, si prius hoc dixero, haec ipsa, quibus adquiescebam, medicinae vim habuisse. In remedium cedunt honesta solacia, et quicquid animum erexit, etiam corpori prodest. Studia mihi nostra saluti fuerunt. Philosophiae acceptum fero, quod surrexi, quod convalui. Illi vitam debeo et nihil illi minus debeo.

My friends contributed much to my good health; by their encouragements, their watching, their talk I was relieved. Nothing, Lucilius, best of men, so restores and helps a sick man as the affection of friends; nothing so steals away the expectation and the fear of death. I did not think that I was dying, since I would leave them surviving me. I thought, I say, that I would go on living not with them, but through them. I seemed to myself not to be pouring out my breath, but handing it on. These things gave me the will to help myself and to endure every torment; otherwise it is most wretched, when you have thrown away the spirit for dying, not to have the spirit for living.

Multum mihi contulerunt ad bonam valetudinem amici, quorum adhortationibus, vigiliis, sermonibus adlevabar. Nihil aeque, Lucili, virorum optime, aegrum reficit atque adiuvat quam amicorum adfectus; nihil aeque expectationem mortis ac metum subripit. Non iudicabam me, cum illos superstites relinquerent mori. Putabam, inquam, me victurum non cum illis, sed per illos. Non effundere mihi spiritum videbar, sed tradere. Haec mihi dederunt voluntatem adiuvandi me et patiendi omne tormentum; alioqui miserrimum est, cum animum moriendi proieceris, non habere vivendi.

Turn, then, to these remedies. The doctor will show you how much to walk, how much to exercise; that you not give in to the idleness toward which a feeble health inclines; that you read aloud and so exercise the breath, whose passage and chamber are in trouble; that you sail, and shake your innards with a gentle tossing; what foods to use, when to summon wine for strength’s sake and when to leave it off, lest it irritate and roughen the cough. But I prescribe to you the one thing that is a remedy not for this disease only but for the whole of life: despise death. Nothing is grievous once we have escaped the fear of it.

Ad haec ergo remedia te confer. Medicus tibi quantum ambules, quantum exercearis, monstrabit; ne indulgeas otio, ad quod vergit iners valetudo; ut legas clarius et spiritum, cuius iter ac receptaculum laborat, exerceas; ut naviges et viscera molli iactatione concutias; quibus cibis utaris, vinum quando virium causa advoces, quando intermittas, ne inritet et exasperet tussim. Ego tibi illud praecipio, quod non tantum huius morbi, sed totius vitae remedium est: contemne mortem. Nihil triste est, cum huius metum effugimus.

Three things are grievous in every illness: fear of death, bodily pain, the suspension of pleasures. Of death enough has been said; this one thing I will add, that the fear is not of the disease but of nature. For many a man’s death has been put off by a disease, and to seem to be perishing has been their salvation. You will die not because you are sick, but because you are alive. That fact awaits you even cured; when you have recovered, you will have escaped not death, but ill health.

Tria haec in omni morbo gravia sunt: metus mortis, dolor corporis, intermissio voluptatum. De morte satis dictum est; hoc unum dicam, non morbi hunc esse sed naturae metum Multorum mortem distulit morbus et saluti illis fuit videri perire. Morieris, non quia aegrotas, sed quia vivis. Ista te res et sanatum manet; cum convalueris, non mortem, sed valetudinem effugies.

Let us now return to that particular trouble: a disease has great agonies. But intervals make them bearable. For the straining of extreme pain finds an end. No one can be in great pain and for long; nature, most loving of us, has so arranged it that she makes pain either bearable or brief.

Ad illud nunc proprium incommodum revertamur: magnos cruciatus habet morbus. Sed hos tolerabiles intervalla faciunt. Nam summi doloris intentio invenit finem. Nemo potest valde dolere et diu; sic nos amantissima nostri natura disposuit, ut dolorem aut tolerabilem aut brevem faceret.

The greatest pains settle in the leanest parts of the body; the sinews and the joints and whatever else is slight rages most fiercely once it has taken trouble into a narrow space. But these parts quickly go numb and, by the very pain, lose the sensation of pain — whether because the breath, hindered from its natural course and changed for the worse, loses the force by which it is vigorous and warns us, or because the corrupted humor, when it has no longer anywhere to flow together, crushes itself and strikes the feeling out of the parts it has overfilled.

Maximi dolores consistunt in macerrimis corporis partibus; nervi articulique et quicquid aliud exile est, acerrime saevit, eum in arto vitia concepit. Sed cito hae partes obstupescunt et ipso dolore sensum doloris amittunt, sive quia spiritus naturali prohibitus cursu et mutatus in peius vim suam, qua viget admonetque nos, perdit, sive quia corruptus umor, cum desiit habere, quo confluat, ipse se elidit et iis, quae nimis implevit, excutit sensum.

Thus gout in the foot and gout in the hand and every pain of the vertebrae and the sinews has its lulls, once it has dulled the parts it was torturing; the first griping of all these torments us, but the onset is quenched by delay, and the end of suffering is to have gone numb. The pain of the teeth, the eyes, the ears is for this very reason the sharpest, that it is born among the narrow parts of the body — no less, by Hercules, than the pain of the head itself; but if it grows more violent, it turns into derangement and stupor.

Sic podagra et cheragra et omnis vertebrarum dolor nervorumque interquiescit, cum illa, quae torquebat, hebetavit; omnium istorum prima verminatio vexat, impetus mora extinguitur et finis dolendi est optorpuisse. Dentium, oculorum, aurium dolor ob hoc ipsum acutissimus est, quod inter angusta corporis nascitur, non minus, mehercule, quam capitis ipsius; sed si incitatior est, in alienationem soporemque convertitur.

This, then, is the comfort of vast pain: that you must cease to feel it, if you feel it too much. But here is what afflicts the inexperienced in the body’s distress: they have not grown used to being content with the mind. They had too much to do with the body. Therefore the great and prudent man draws his mind apart from the body and dwells much with the better and divine part, and with this querulous and fragile one only as far as he must.

Hoc itaque solacium vasti doloris est, quod necesse est desinas illum sentire, si nimis senseris. Illud autem est, quod imperitos in vexatione corporis male habet: non adsueverunt animo esse contenti. Multum illis cum corpore fuit. Ideo vir magnus ac prudens animum diducit a corpore et multum cum meliore ac divina parte versatur, cum hac querula et fragili quantum necesse est.

"But it is troublesome," he says, "to go without one’s accustomed pleasures, to abstain from food, to thirst, to hunger." These are grievous at the first abstaining. Then the craving slackens, the very organs by which we crave grown weary and failing; the stomach turns peevish, and food, once greedily wanted, becomes a loathing. The desires themselves die. And it is not bitter to lack what you have ceased to crave.

Sed molestum est, inquit, carere adsuetis voluptatibus, abstinere cibo, sitire, esurire. Haec prima abstinentia gravia sunt. Deinde cupiditas relanguescit ipsis per quae cupimus fatigatis ac deficientibus; inde morosus est stomachus, inde cuius fuit aviditas cibi, odium est. Desideria ipsa moriuntur. Non est autem acerbum carere eo, quod cupere desieris.

Add that there is no pain that is not interrupted, or at least eased. Add that one may guard against what is coming and meet the imminent with remedies. For there is none that does not send its signs ahead, especially one that returns by habit. The endurance of a disease is bearable, if you despise what it threatens at the last.

Adice, quod nullus non intermittitur dolor aut certe remittitur. Adice, quod licet cavere venturum et obsistere inminenti remediis. Nullus enim non signa praemittit, utique qui ex solito revertitur. Tolerabilis est morbi patientia, si contempseris id quod extremum minatur.

Do not make your own troubles heavier for yourself and load yourself with complaints. Pain is light, if opinion has added nothing to it; on the other hand, if you begin to encourage yourself and say, "It is nothing," or at least, "It is small; let us hold out, it will soon end" — you will make it light by thinking it so. Everything hangs on opinion; not ambition alone looks to it, and luxury, and greed: we feel pain according to opinion. Each man is as wretched as he has believed himself to be.

Noli mala tua facere tibi ipse graviora et te querellis onerare. Levis est dolor, si nihil illi opinio adiecerit; contra, si exhortari te coeperis ac dicere: Nihil est aut certe exiguum est. Duremus; iam desinet; levem illum, dum putas, facies. Omnia ex opinione suspensa sunt; non ambitio tantum ad illam respicit et luxuria et avaritia. Ad opinionem dolemus. Tam miser est quisque quam credidit.

I think we must do away with complaints about past pains, and those words: "No one ever had it worse. What agonies, what great evils I bore! No one thought I would get up. How often I was given up by my own people, how often abandoned by the doctors! Men set on the rack are not so torn apart." Even if these things are true, they are past. What good is it to handle past pains over again, and to be wretched because you once were? And then, does not everyone add much to his own troubles and lie to himself? Besides, what was bitter to bear, it is pleasant to have borne; it is natural to rejoice at the ending of one’s own ill. Two things, then, must be cut away: the fear of the future and the memory of past trouble; the latter no longer concerns me, the former not yet.

Detrahendas praeteritorum dolorum conquestiones puto et illa verba: Nulli umquam fuit peius. Quos cruciatus, quanta mala pertuli! Nemo me surrecturum putavit. Quotiens deploratus sum a meis, quotiens a medicis relictus! In eculeum inpositi non sic distrahuntur. Etiam si sunt vera ista, transierunt. Quid iuvat praeteritos dolores retractare et miserum esse, quia fueris? Quid, quod nemo non multum malis suis adicit et sibi ipse mentitur? Deinde quod acerbum fuit ferre, tulisse iucundum est; naturale est mali sui fine gaudere. Circumcidenda ergo duo sunt, et futuri timor et veteris incommodi memoria; hoc ad me iam non pertinet, illud nondum.

Perhaps one day it will be a joy to remember even these things.

Forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit.

Athletes — how many blows do they take on the face, how many over the whole body? Yet they bear every torment from desire of glory, and they suffer these things not only because they fight, but in order to fight. The training itself is a torment. Let us too conquer all things, whose prize is no crown, no palm, no trumpeter calling for silence to proclaim our name, but virtue and firmness of mind and a peace won for all the rest, once in some single contest fortune has been beaten down.

Athletae quantum plagarum ore, quantum toto corpore excipiunt? Ferunt tamen omne tormentum gloriae cupiditate nec tantum quia pugnant, ista patiuntur, sed ut pugnent. Exercitatio ipsa tormentum est. Nos quoque evincamus omnia, quorum praemium non corona nec palma est nec tubicen praedicationi nominis nostri silentium faciens, sed virtus et firmitas animi et pax in ceterum parta, si semel in aliquo certamine debellata fortuna est.

"I feel grievous pain." What then? Do you not feel it, if you bear it like a woman? As an enemy is more deadly to those who flee, so every chance trouble presses harder on the man who gives way and turns his back. "But it is grievous." What? Are we brave for this — to carry light loads? Which would you rather, that the disease be long, or sharp and short? If it is long, it has its respites, gives room for recovery, grants much time; it must rise and then cease. A short and headlong disease will do one of two things: either it will be put out, or it will put us out. And what does it matter whether it is no more, or I am no more? In either case there is an end of suffering.

Dolorem gravem sentio. Quid ergo? Non sentis, si illum muliebriter tuleris? Quemadmodum perniciosior est hostis fugientibus, sic omne fortuitum incommodum magis instat cedenti et averso. Sed grave est. Quid? Nos ad hoc fortes sumus, ut levia portemus? Utrum vis longum esse morbum an concitatum et brevem? Si longus est, habet intercapedinem, dat refectioni locum, multum temporis donat, necesse est, ut exurgit, et desinat. Brevis morbus ac praeceps alterutrum faciet: aut extinguetur aut extinguet. Quid autem interest, non sit an non sim? In utroque finis dolendi est.

This too will help: to turn the mind to other thoughts and withdraw from the pain. Think of what you have done honorably, what bravely; rehearse with yourself the good parts. Scatter your memory over the things you have most admired. Then let every bravest man and conqueror of pain come before you: he who, while offering his varicose veins to be cut out, went on reading his book; he who did not stop laughing, even when the very torturers, enraged at this, tried out on him every instrument of their cruelty. Will pain not be conquered by reason, when it has been conquered by laughter?

Illud quoque proderit, ad alias cogitationes avertere animum et a dolore discedere. Cogita quid honeste, quid fortiter feceris; bonas partes tecum ipse tracta. Memoriam in ea, quae maxime miratus es, sparge. Tunc tibi fortissimus quisque et victor doloris occurrat: ille, qui cum varices exsecandas praeberet, legere librum perseveravit; ille, qui non desiit ridere, cum hoc ipsum irati tortores omnia instrumenta crudelitatis suae experirentur. Non vincetur dolor ratione, qui victus est risu?

You may say now whatever you will: catarrhs, and the force of a continual cough heaving up pieces of the lungs, and a fever scorching the very vitals, and thirst, and limbs wrenched apart, the joints starting different ways; greater still are the flame and the rack and the hot plate, and the thing pressed deeper into the very wounds as they swell, to renew them. Yet amid these someone has not groaned. Too little: he did not beg. Too little: he made no answer. Too little: he laughed, and from the heart. After this, will you not laugh pain to scorn?

Quicquid vis nunc licet dicas, destillationes et vim continuae tussis egerentem viscerum partes et febrem praecordia ipsa torrentem et sitim et artus in diversum articulis exeuntibus tortos; plus est flamma et eculeus et lammina et vulneribus ipsis intumescentibus quod illa renovaret et altius urgeret inpressum. Inter haec tamen aliquis non gemuit. Parum est; non rogavit. Parum est; non respondit. Parum est; risit et quidem ex animo. Vis tu post hoc dolorem deridere?

"But the disease," he says, "lets me do nothing; it has drawn me away from all my duties." Your ill health holds your body, not your mind too. And so it delays the runner’s feet, it will hinder the cobbler’s hands or the smith’s; but if your mind is usually in use, you will counsel, teach, listen, learn, inquire, remember. What more? Do you think you are doing nothing, if you are a temperate invalid? You will show that a disease can be overcome, or at least sustained.

Sed nihil, inquit, agere sinit morbus, qui me omnibus abduxit officiis. Corpus tuum valetudo tenet, non et animum. Itaque cursoris moratur pedes, sutoris aut fabri manus inpediet; si animus tibi esse in usu solet, suadebis docebis, audies disces, quaeres recordaberis. Quid porro? Nihil agere te credis, si temperans aeger sis? Ostendes morbum posse superari vel certe sustineri.

There is, believe me, a place for virtue even on the sickbed. It is not only arms and the battle-line that give proof of a mind keen and untamed by terrors; the brave man shows himself even in his nightclothes. You have something to do: wrestle well with the disease. If it forces nothing from you, if it wins nothing by entreaty, you set forth a notable example. Oh, how great a matter for glory there would be, if we were watched while sick! Watch yourself, praise yourself.

Est, mihi crede, virtuti etiam in lectulo locus. Non tantum arma et acies dant argumenta alacris animi indomitique terroribus; et in vestimentis vir fortis apparet. Habes, quod agas: bene luctare cum morbo. Si nihil te coegerit, si nihil exoraverit, insigne prodis exemplum. O quam magna erat gloriae materia, si spectaremur aegri! Ipse te specta, ipse te lauda.

Besides, there are two kinds of pleasures. The bodily ones a disease checks, but does not take away. Rather, if you reckon truly, it sharpens them: it is more pleasant for the thirsty to drink, food is more welcome to the hungry. Whatever comes after abstinence is taken up more greedily. But those pleasures of the mind, which are greater and surer, no doctor denies to a sick man. Whoever pursues these and understands them well despises all the blandishments of the senses.

Praeterea duo genera sunt voluptatum. Corporales morbus inhibet, non tamen tollit. Immo, si verum aestimes, incitat; magis iuvat bibere sitientem; gratior est esurienti cibus. Quicquid ex abstinentia contigit, avidius exciditur. Illas vero animi voluptates, quae maiores certioresque sunt, nemo medicus aegro negat. Has quisquis sequitur et bene intellegit, omnia sensuum blandimenta contemnit.

"Oh, the unhappy invalid!" Why? Because he does not melt snow in his wine? Because he does not renew the chill of his draught, which he has mixed in a capacious goblet, by breaking ice over it besides? Because no Lucrine oysters are opened for him at the very table? Because there is no uproar of cooks around his dining-room, carrying in the very hearths along with the dishes? For luxury has by now contrived this: lest any food grow tepid, lest anything be too little scalding for a palate already calloused, the kitchen follows the dinner in.

O infelicem aegrum. Quare? Quia non vino nivem diluit? Quia non rigorem potionis suae, quam capaci scypho miscuit, renovat fracta insuper glacie? Quia non ostrea illi Lucrina in ipsa mensa aperiuntur? Quia non circa cenationem eius tumultus cocorum est ipsos cum opsoniis focos transferentium? Hoc enim iam luxuria commenta est: ne quis intepescat cibus, ne quid palato iam calloso parum ferveat, cenam culina prosequitur.

"Oh, the unhappy invalid!" — he will eat as much as he can digest. No boar will lie before his eyes, banished from the table as cheap meat; nor will the breasts of birds be set out heaped on his serving-tray — for to see the whole birds is now a disgust. What harm has been done you? You will dine like a sick man — nay, sometimes like a healthy one.

O infelicem aegrum! edet, quantum concoquat. Non iacebit in conspectu aper ut vilis caro a mensa relegatus, nec in repositorio eius pectora avium, totas enim videre fastidium est, congesta ponentur. Quid tibi mali factum est? Cenabis tamquam aeger, immo aliquando tamquam sanus.

But all these things we shall easily endure — broth, warm water, and whatever else seems intolerable to the dainty and those awash in luxury, sick more in mind than in body — if only we stop dreading death. And we shall stop, if we have come to know the limits of goods and evils. Then at last neither will life be a weariness nor death a fear.

Sed omnia ista facile perferemus, sorbitionem, aquam calidam et quicquid aliud intolerabile videtur debeatis et luxu fluentibus magisque animo quam corpore morbidis; tantum mortem desinamus horrere. Desinemus autem, si fines bonorum ac malorum cognoverimus; ita demum nec vita taedio erit nec mors timori.

For a surfeit of itself cannot take hold of a life that reviews so many things various, great, divine; it is idle leisure that tends to bring life into hatred of itself. To one ranging over the nature of things, truth will never come to disgust; it is falsehoods that will cloy.

Vitam enim occupare satietas sui non potest tot res varias, magnas, divinas percensentem; in odium illam sui adducere solet iners otium. Rerum naturam peragranti numquam in fastidium veritas veniet; falsa satiabunt.

Again, if death draws near and calls, though it be untimely, though it cut short one’s middle years, the fruit of the longest life has been gathered. Nature has been known to such a man in great part. He knows that the honorable does not grow with time. To those it must seem that all life is short, who measure it by pleasures empty and therefore endless.

Rursus si mors accedit et vocat, licet inmatura sit, licet mediam praecidat aetatem, perceptus longissimae fructus est. Cognita est illi ex magna parte natura. Scit tempore honesta non crescere; iis necesse est videri omnem vitam brevem, qui illam voluptatibus vanis et ideo infinitis metiuntur.

Refresh yourself with these thoughts, and meanwhile give time to our letters. A time will come at last that will join us again and bring us together; however small it be, the knowledge of how to use it will make it long. For, as Posidonius says, "a single day of learned men opens wider than the longest age of the ignorant."

His te cogitationibus recrea et interim epistulis nostris vaca. Veniet aliquando tempus, quod nos iterum iungat ac misceat; quantulumlibet sit illud, longum faciet scientia utendi. Nam, ut Posidonius ait, unus dies hominum eruditorum plus patet quam inperitis longissima aetas.

Meanwhile hold to this, bite down on this: not to give way to adversity, not to trust prosperity, to keep before your eyes the whole license of fortune, as though whatever she can do, she will do. Whatever has long been awaited comes more gently. Farewell.

Interim hoc tene, hoc morde: adversis non succumbere, laetis non credere, omnem fortunae licentiam in oculis habere, tamquam quicquid potest facere, factura sit. Quicquid expectatum est diu, lenius accedit. Vale.

I am waiting for your letters, in which you may tell me what new thing your tour of all Sicily has shown you, and above all something more certain about Charybdis itself. For that Scylla is a rock, and not even a fearsome one to sailors, I know perfectly well; whether Charybdis answers to the legends I long to have written out for me, and, if you happen to observe it — and it is worth observing — let me know for certain whether it is driven into its whirlpools by one wind only, or whether every storm churns up that sea alike, and whether it is true that whatever is snatched away by that strait’s vortex is dragged, hidden, for many miles and surfaces again near the shore of Tauromenium.

Expecto epistulas tuas, quibus mihi indices, circuitus Siciliae totius quid tibi novi ostenderit, et ante omnia de ipsa Charybdi certiora. Nam Scyllam saxum esse et quidem non terribile navigantibus optime scio; Charybdis an respondeat fabulis, perscribi mihi desidero et, si forte observaveris, dignum est autem quod observes, fac nos certiores, utrum uno tantum vento agatur in vertices an omnis tempestas aeque mare illud contorqueat, et an verum sit, quicquid illo freti turbine abreptum est, per multa milia trahi conditum et circa Tauromenitanum litus emergere.

If you write me all this out, then I shall make bold to charge you to climb Aetna too, in my honor — the mountain that some infer is being consumed and gradually sinking, from the fact that it used once to be visible to sailors farther off. This can happen not because the mountain’s height comes down, but because the fire has faded and is borne out less violently and less abundantly, the smoke too, for the same reason, slacker by day. But neither is incredible — neither that a mountain, devoured daily, grows smaller, nor that it stays the same, since the fire does not eat the mountain itself, but, conceived in some underground valley, boils up there and feeds on other matter. In the mountain itself it has no nourishment, only a passage.

Si haec mihi perscripseris, tunc tibi audebo mandare, ut in honorem meum Aetnam quoque ascendas, quam consumi et sensim subsidere ex hoc colligunt quidam, quod aliquando longius navigantibus solebat ostendi. Potest hoc accidere, non quia montis altitudo descendit, sed quia ignis evanuit et minus vehemens ac largus effertur, ob eandem causam fumo quoque per diem segniore. Neutrum autem incredibile est, nec montem, qui devoretur cotidie, minui, nec manere eundem, quia non ipsum exest, sed in aliqua inferna valle conceptus exaestuat et aliis pascitur. In ipso monte non alimentum habet, sed viam.

In Lycia there is a very famous region — the inhabitants call it Hephaestion — where the ground is pierced in many places, and a harmless fire plays around it without any damage to what grows there. And so the region is rich and grassy, since the flames burn nothing, but only shine with a force relaxed and faint.

In Lycia regio notissima est, Hephaestion incolae vocant, foratum pluribus locis solum, quod sine ullo nascentium damno ignis innoxius circumit. Laeta itaque regio est et herbida nihil flammis adurentibus, sed tantum vi remissa ac languida refulgentibus.

But let us reserve these questions, to be pursued when you have written to me how far the snows lie from the very mouth of the mountain — snows that not even summer melts; so safe are they from the neighboring fire. And you have no reason to charge this trouble to my account. For you would have indulged your own malady even if no one had asked you.

Sed reservemus ista tunc quaesituri, cum tu mihi scripseris, quantum ab ipso ore montis nives absint, quas ne aestas quidem solvit; adeo tutae sunt ab igne vicino. Non est autem quod istam curam imputes mihi. Morbo enim tuo daturus eras, etiam si nemo mandaret.

What will I give you not to describe Aetna in your poem, not to touch this theme hallowed for all poets? That Virgil had already filled it out was no hindrance to Ovid’s handling it. Nor did the two of them deter even Cornelius Severus. Besides, this theme has given itself happily to all, and those who went before seem to me not to have forestalled what could be said, but to have opened it up.

Quid tibi do, ne Aetnam describas in tuo carmine, ne hunc sollemnem omnibus poetis locum adtingas? Quem quo minus Ovidius tractaret, nihil obstitit, quod iam Vergilius impleverat. Ne Severum quidem Cornelium uterque deterruit. Omnibus praeterea feliciter hic locus se dedit et qui praecesserant, non praeripuisse mihi videntur, quae dici poterant, sed aperuisse.

It matters much whether you come to a subject used up or to one broken in: it grows by the day, and what has been discovered does not stand in the way of those who will discover more. Besides, the position of the last comer is the best: he finds the words ready, which, arranged otherwise, take on a new face. And he does not lay hands on them as on another’s property. For they are common.

Multum interest, utrum ad consumptam materiam an ad subactam accedas; crescit in dies et inventuris inventa non obstant. Praeterea condicio optima est ultimi; parata verba invenit, quae aliter instructa novam faciem habent. Nec illis manus inicit tamquam alienis. Sunt enim publica.

Either I do not know you, or Aetna sets your mouth watering. By now you are longing to write something grand and a match for your predecessors. For your modesty does not let you hope for more — a modesty so great in you that you seem to me likely to draw back the powers of your talent, if there were any risk of surpassing them; so great is your reverence for those who came before.

Aut ego te non novi aut Aetna tibi salivam movet. Iam cupis grande aliquid et par prioribus scribere. Plus enim sperare modestia tibi tua non permittit, quae tanta in te est, ut videaris mihi retracturus ingenii tui vires, si vincendi periculum sit; tanta tibi priorum reverentia est.

Among other things, wisdom has this good in it: no one can be outdone by another except while the climb is still on. When you have reached the summit, all are equal; there is no room for increase, one stands still. Does the sun add to its own greatness? Does the moon advance beyond its wont? The seas do not grow. The universe keeps the same bearing and measure.

Inter cetera hoc habet boni sapientia: nemo ab altero potest vinci, nisi dum ascenditur. Cum ad summum perveneris, paria sunt, non est incremento locus, statur. Numquid sol magnitudini suae adicit? Numquid ultra quam solet, luna procedit? Maria non crescunt. Mundus eundem habitum ac modum servat.

Things that have filled out their just greatness cannot raise themselves higher. Whoever are wise will be peers and equals. Each of them will have his own gifts: one will be more affable, another readier, another quicker in speaking, another more eloquent; but the thing in question, the thing that makes one happy, is equal in all.

Extollere se, quae iustam magnitudinem implevere, non possunt. Quicumque fuerint sapientes, pares erunt et aequales. Habebit unusquisque ex iis proprias dotes: alius erit adfabilior, alius expeditior, alius promptior in eloquendo, alius facundior; illud, de quo agitur, quod beatum facit, aequalest in omnibus.

Whether your Aetna can subside and fall in on itself, whether the unremitting force of its fires drags down that lofty peak, conspicuous across the stretches of a vast sea, I do not know; but virtue no flame, no collapse will bring lower. This majesty alone knows not how to be cast down. It can neither be carried out further nor drawn back. Its greatness, like that of the heavenly bodies, is fixed. Let us try to raise ourselves up to this.

An Aetna tua possit sublabi et in se ruere, an hoc excelsum cacumen et conspicuum per vasti maris spatia detrahat adsidua vis ignium, nescio; virtutem non flamma, non ruina inferius adducet. Haec una maiestas deprimi nescit. Nec proferri ultra nec referri potest. Sic huius, ut caelestium, stata magnitudo est. Ad hanc nos conemur educere.

Much of the work is already done — nay, if I want to confess the truth, not much. For it is no goodness to be better than the worst. Who would boast of his eyes, who can just make out the daylight? For one to whom the sun shines through a fog, though he be content meanwhile to have escaped the dark, does not yet enjoy the good of light.

Iam multum operis effecti est; immo, si verum fateri volo, non multum. Nec enim bonitas est pessimis esse meliorem. Quis oculis glorietur, qui suspicetur diem? Cui sol per caliginem splendet, licet contentus interim sit effugisse tenebras, adhuc non fruitur bono lucis.

Then our mind will have something for which to congratulate itself, when, sent out from this darkness in which it wallows, it has looked upon clear things not with a thin sight but has let in the whole day, and has been restored to its own heaven, when it has regained the place it held by the lot of its birth. Its own origins call it upward. And it will be there even before it is loosed from this custody, once it has scattered its vices and, pure and light, has flashed up into divine thoughts.

Tunc animus noster habebit, quod gratuletur sibi, cum emissus his tenebris, in quibus volutatur, non tenui visu clara prospexerit, sed totum diem admiserit et redditus caelo suo fuerit, cum receperit locum, quem occupavit sorte nascendi. Sursum illum vocant initia sua. Erit autem illic etiam antequam hac custodia exsolvatur, cum vitia disiecerit purusque ac levis in cogitationes divinas emicuerit.

That we are doing this, dearest Lucilius, that we are going at it with all our drive — though few know it, though none — is a joy. Glory is the shadow of virtue; it will accompany her even unwilling. But just as a shadow sometimes goes before, sometimes follows or is at one’s back, so glory is sometimes before us and offers itself to be seen, sometimes is behind us, and the greater the later it comes, once envy has withdrawn.

Hoc nos agere, Lucili carissime, in hoc ire impetu toto, licet pauci sciant, licet nemo, iuvat. Gloria umbra virtutis est; etiam invitam comitabitur. Sed quemadmodum umbra aliquando antecedit, aliquando sequitur vel a tergo est, ita gloria aliquando ante nos est visendamque se praebet, aliquando in averso est maiorque quo serior, ubi invidia secessit.

How long Democritus seemed to be mad! Fame scarcely received Socrates. How long the state took no notice of Cato! It spat him out and did not understand him, except when it had lost him. The innocence and virtue of Rutilius would lie hidden, had it not suffered injury; while it was being violated, it blazed out. Did he not give thanks to his lot and embrace his own exile? I speak of those whom fortune brought to light by harrying them. How many men’s advances have come into recognition only after the men themselves! How many has fame not received, but dug up!

Quamdiu videbatur furere Democritus! Vix recepit Socraten fama. Quamdiu Catonem civitas ignoravit! Respuit nec intellexit, nisi cum perdidit. Rutili innocentia ac virtus lateret, nisi accepisset iniuriam; dum violatum effulsit. Numquid non sorti suae gratias egit et exilium suum complexus est? De his loquor, quos inlustravit fortuna, dum vexat; quam multorum profectus in notitiam evasere post ipsos! Quam multos fama non excepit, sed eruit!

You see how greatly not only the more learned but even this crowd of the ignorant admire Epicurus. He was unknown to Athens itself, near which he had lain hidden. And so, surviving his friend Metrodorus by many years, in a certain letter, after he had sung in grateful remembrance of his own friendship and Metrodorus’s, he added this at the very end: that it had done no harm to him and Metrodorus, amid blessings so great, that famous Greece had held them not only unknown but almost unheard of.

Vides Epicurum quantopere non tantum eruditiores, sed haec quoque imperitorum turba miretur. Hic ignotus ipsis Athenis fuit, circa quas delituerat. Multis itaque iam annis Metrodoro suo superstes in quadam epistula, cum amicitiam suam et Metrodori grata commemoratione cecinisset, hoc novissime adiecit, nihil sibi et Metrodoro inter bona tanta nocuisse, quod ipsos illa nobilis Graecia non ignotos solum habuisset, sed paene inauditos.

Was he not, then, discovered after he had ceased to be? Did not his reputation shine out? Metrodorus too confesses this in a certain letter: that he and Epicurus were not well enough known; but that after them, those who were willing to walk in the same footsteps would have a name great and ready-made.

Numquid ergo non postea quam esse desierat, inventus est? Numquid non opinio eius enituit? Hoc Metrodorus quoque in quadam epistula confitetur, se et Epicurum non satis enotuisse; sed post se et Epicurum magnum paratumque nomen habituros, qui voluissent per eadem ire vestigia.

No virtue lies hidden, and to have lain hidden is no loss to it. A day will come that publishes what has been stored away and pressed down by the spite of its own age. He is born for few who thinks only of the people of his own time. Many thousands of years, many peoples will come after; look to them. Even if envy has imposed silence on all who live with you, there will come those who judge without offense, without favor. If there is any reward of virtue from fame, this too does not perish. To us, indeed, the talk of those who come after will mean nothing; yet it will honor and attend us, even though we do not feel it.

Nulla virtus latet, et latuisse non ipsius est damnum. Veniet qui conditam et saeculi sui malignitate conpressam dies publicet. Paucis natus est, qui populum aetatis suae cogitat. Multa annorum milia, multa populorum supervenient; ad illa respice. Etiam si omnibus tecum viventibus silentium livor indixerit, venient qui sine offensa, sine gratia iudicent. Si quod est pretium virtutis ex fama, nec hoc interit. Ad nos quidem nihil pertinebit posterorum sermo; tamen etiam non sentientes colet ac frequentabit.

To no one has virtue failed to return thanks, both living and dead, provided only he followed her in good faith, provided he did not deck and paint himself, but was the same man, whether he was seen on notice or unprepared and on a sudden. Pretense gets nowhere. A face laid on lightly from outside deceives few; truth is the same in every part of itself. The things that deceive have nothing solid in them. A lie is thin; it shows through, if you inspect it carefully. Farewell.

Nulli non virtus et vivo et mortuo rettulit gratiam, si modo illam bona secutus est fide, si se non exornavit et pinxit, sed idem fuit, sive ex denuntiato videbatur, sive inparatus ac subito. Nihil simulatio proficit. Paucis inponit leviter extrinsecus inducta facies; veritas in omnem partem sui eadem est. Quae decipiunt, nihil habent solidi. Tenue est mendacium; perlucet, si diligenter inspexeris. Vale.

Today I am free for myself not only by my own grant, but by that of a show, which has called off all the bothersome people to a boxing-match. No one will burst in, no one will hinder my thinking, which by this very confidence advances more boldly. The door has not creaked again and again, the curtain will not be lifted; I shall be allowed to go forward safely — which is the more necessary for one who goes by his own path and follows his own road. Do I not, then, follow my predecessors? I do; but I allow myself both to discover something, and to change, and to leave aside. I am not their slave, but I assent to them.

Hodierno die non tantum meo beneficio milli mihi vaco, sed spectaculi, quod omnes molestos ad sphaeromachian avocavit. Nemo inrumpet, nemo cogitationem meam impediet, quae hac ipsa fiducia procedit audacius. Non crepuit subinde ostium, non adlevabitur velum; licebit tuto vadere, quod magis necessarium est per se eunti et suam sequenti viam. Non ergo sequor priores? Facio, sed permitto mihi et invenire aliquid et mutare et relinquere. Non servio illis, sed adsentior.

Yet I said a bold word, promising myself silence and seclusion without an interrupter. Look: a huge shout is carried over from the stadium, and it does not knock me out of myself, but turns me to a reflection on this very thing. I think to myself how many train their bodies, how few their minds; what a throng gathers for a show unreliable and frivolous, what a solitude there is around the good arts; how feeble in mind are the men whose arms and shoulders we admire.

Magnum tamen verbum dixi, qui mihi silentium promittebam et sine interpellatore secretum. Ecce ingens clamor ex stadio perfertur et me non excutit mihi, sed in huius ipsius rei contentionem transfert. Cogito mecum, quam multi corpora exerceant, ingenia quam pauci; quantus ad spectaculum non fidele et lusorium fiat concursus, quanta sit circa artes bonas solitudo; quam inbecilli animo sint, quorum lacertos umerosque miramur.

This above all I turn over with myself: if the body can be brought by training to such endurance that it bears the fists and heels of more than one man at once, that someone, holding out under a most burning sun in the most scorching dust and soaked in his own blood, can carry the day through; how much more easily can the mind be strengthened, so that it takes fortune’s blows unconquered, so that, thrown down, trampled, it rises again. For the body needs many things in order to be strong; the mind grows from itself, feeds itself, trains itself. They need much food, much drink, much oil, and, in short, long labor; but virtue will fall to you without apparatus, without expense. Whatever can make you good is within you.

Illud maxime revolvo mecum: si corpus perduci exercitatione ad hanc patientiam potest, qua et pugnos pariter et calces non unius hominis ferat, qua solem ardentissimum in ferventissimo pulvere sustinens aliquis et sanguine suo madens diem ducat; quanto facilius animus conroborari possit, ut fortunae ictus invictus excipiat, ut proiectus, ut conculcatus exsurgat. Corpus enim multis eget rebus, ut valeat; animus ex se crescit, se ipse alit, se exercet. Illis multo cibo, multa potione opus est, multo oleo, longa denique opera; tibi continget virtus sine apparatu, sine inpensa. Quicquid facere te potest bonum, tecum est.

What do you need in order to be good? To will it. And what better can you will than to snatch yourself from this slavery that weighs on all — the slavery that even chattel-slaves of the lowest condition, born in this filth, strive by every means to throw off? Their savings, which they have scraped together by cheating their own bellies, they pay over for their freedom; will you not crave, at any cost, to arrive at freedom — you who think yourself born in it?

Quid tibi opus est, ut sis bonus? Velle. Quid autem melius potes velle quam eripere te huic servituti, quae omnes premit, quam mancipia quoque condicionis extremae et in his sordibus nata omni modo exuere conantur? Peculium suum, quod conparaverunt ventre fraudato, pro capite numerant; tu non concupisces qualiacumque ad libertatem pervenire, qui te in illa putas natum?

Why do you look to your strongbox? It cannot be bought. And so it is an empty word, this "freedom" that is entered in the registers, which neither those who bought it have nor those who sold it. You must give yourself this good; you must ask it of yourself. Free yourself first from the fear of death — that lays the yoke on us; then from the fear of poverty.

Quid ad arcam tuam respicis? Emi non potest. Itaque in tabulas vanum coicitur nomen libertatis, quam nec qui emerunt, habent nec qui vendiderunt. Tibi des oportet istud bonum, a te petas. Libera te primum metu mortis: illa nobis iugum inponit; deinde metu paupertatis.

If you want to know how little evil there is in poverty, compare the faces of the poor and the rich; the poor man laughs more often and more truly; there is no anxiety deep within; even if some care does fall on him, it passes like a light cloud. The cheerfulness of these so-called happy men is feigned, while their sadness is heavy and festering underneath — the heavier, indeed, because at times it is not permitted to be openly wretched, but amid hardships that eat at the very heart one must play the happy man.

Si vis scire, quam nihil in illa mali sit, compara inter se pauperum et divitum vultus; saepius pauper et fidelius ridet; nulla sollicitudo in alto est; etiam si qua incidit cura, velut nubes levis transit. Horum, qui felices vocantur, hilaritas ficta est at gravis et subpurata tristitia, eo quidem gravior, quia interdum non licet palam esse miseros, sed inter aerumnas cor ipsum exedentes necesse est agere felicem.

Behold, I rule over Argos; Pelops left me the realm where, between the sea of Helle and the Ionian main, the Isthmus is pressed close —

En impero Argis; regna mihi liquit Pelops, Qua ponto ab Helles atque ab Ionio mari Urgetur Isthmos,

And unless you fall silent, Menelaus, you will die by this right hand.

Quod nisi quieris, Menelae, hac dextra occides,

When you are about to buy a horse, you order the blanket taken off; you strip the clothes from the slaves on sale, lest any bodily faults lie hidden; do you appraise a man wrapped up? The slave-dealers hide whatever there is that might displease by some trick of grooming, and so to buyers the very ornaments are suspect. If you saw a leg or an arm bound up, you would order it bared and the body itself shown to you.

Equum empturus solvi iubes stratum, detrahis vestimenta venalibus, ne qua vitia corporis lateant; hominem involutum aestimas? Mangones quicquid est, quod displiceat, aliquo lenocinio abscondunt, itaque ementibus ornamenta ipsa suspecta sunt. Sive crus alligatum sive brachium aspiceres, nudari iuberes et ipsum tibi corpus ostendi.

Do you see that king of Scythia or Sarmatia, splendid with the emblem on his head? If you want to appraise him and to know fully what he is, undo the diadem; much evil lurks beneath it. Why do I speak of others? If you will weigh yourself, set aside your money, your house, your rank, and look at yourself within. As it is, you take others’ word for what you are. Farewell.

Vides illum Scythiae Sarmatiaeve regem insigni capitis decorum? Si vis illum aestimare totumque scire, qualis sit, fasciam solve; multum mali sub illa latet. Quid de aliis loquor? Si perpendere te voles, sepone pecuniam, domum, dignitatem, intus te ipse considera. Nunc qualis sis, aliis credis. Vale

You complain that you have fallen in with an ungrateful man. If this is now the first time, give thanks either to your fortune or to your carefulness. But carefulness can do nothing here except make you grudging. For if you want to avoid this risk, you will give no benefits; so, that they may not be lost upon another, they will be lost upon you. Better that they go unanswered than ungiven. Even after a bad harvest one must sow; often what had been lost through the constant barrenness of an unlucky soil, the abundance of a single year restores.

Querens incidisse te in hominem ingratum. Si hoc nunc primum, age aut fortunae aut diligentiae tuae gratias. Sed nihil facere hoc loco diligentia potest nisi te malignum. Nam si hoc periculum vitare volueris, non dabis beneficia; ita ne apud alium pereant, apud te peribunt. Non respondeant potius quam non dentur. Et post malam segetem serendum est; saepe quicquid perierat adsidua infelicis soli sterilitate, unius anni restituit ubertas.

It is worth it, in order to find one grateful man, to try the ungrateful too. No one has so sure a hand in conferring benefits that he is not often deceived; let them go astray, that they may one day strike home. After a shipwreck the seas are ventured again. The bankrupt does not drive the moneylender from the forum. Life will quickly grow torpid in idle inactivity, if one must give up whatever offends; but let this very thing make you more generous. For when the outcome of a thing is uncertain, one must try it often, that it may at some time succeed.

Est tanti, ut gratum invenias, experiri et ingratos. Nemo habet tam certam in beneficiis manum, ut non saepe fallatur; aberrent, ut aliquando haereant. Post naufragium maria temptantur. Faeneratorem non fugat a foro decoctor. Cito inerti otio vita torpebit, si relinquendum est, quicquid offendit; te vero benigniorem haec ipsa res faciat. Nam cuius rei eventus incertus est, id ut aliquando procedat, saepe temptandum est.

But of this I have spoken at sufficient length in the books entitled On Benefits. This seems more worth asking, which has not, in my judgment, been sufficiently explained: whether the man who has done us good, if he afterward does us harm, has made it even and discharged us of the debt. Add, if you like, this too: that he afterward harmed us much more than he had before done us good.

Sed de isto satis multa in iis libris locuti sumus, qui de beneficiis inscribuntur. Illud magis quaerendum videtur, quod non satis, ut existimo, explicatum est, an is, qui profuit nobis, si postea nocuit, paria fecerit et nos debito solverit. Adice, si vis, et illud: multo plus postea nocuit quam ante profuerat.

If you ask for the strict verdict of a rigid judge, he will acquit the one by the other and say: "Although the injuries outweigh, yet let what remains over from the injury be granted to the benefits." He harmed more; but he helped first. And so let account be taken of the timing too.

Si rectam illam rigidi iudicis sententiam quaeris, alterum ab altero absolvet et dicet: Quamvis iniuriae praeponderent, tamen beneficiis donetur, quod ex iniuria superest. Plus nocuit; sed prius profuit. Itaque habeatur et temporis ratio.

Now these things are too plain for you to need reminding that one must ask how gladly he helped, how unwillingly he harmed — since both benefits and injuries consist in the intention. "I did not want to give the benefit; I was overcome either by shame, or by the persistence of one pressing me, or by hope."

Iam illa manifestiora sunt, quam ut admoneri debeas quaerendum esse, quam libenter profuerit, quam invitus nocuerit, quoniam animo et beneficia et iniuriae constant. Nolui beneficium dare; victus sum aut verecundia aut instantis pertinacia aut spe.

Each thing is owed in the spirit in which it is given, and it is weighed not by how great it is, but by the will from which it set out. Now let guesswork be removed: both that was a benefit, and this, which exceeded the measure of the earlier benefit, is an injury. A good man so casts up both reckonings that he defrauds himself: he adds to the benefit, subtracts from the injury. That other, more lenient judge — the one I would rather be — will bid us forget the injury and remember the service.

Eo animo quidque debetur, quo datur, nec quantum sit, sed a quali profectum voluntate, perpenditur. Nunc coniectura tollatur; et illud beneficium fuit et hoc, quod modum beneficii prioris excessit, iniuria est. Vir bonus utrosque calculos sic ponit, ut se ipse circumscribat; beneficio adicit, iniuriae demit. Alter ille remissior iudex, quem esse me malo, iniuriae oblivisci iubebit, officii meminisse.

"But surely," you say, "this accords with justice — to render to each his own: to a benefit, gratitude; to an injury, retaliation, or at least ill will." That will be true when one man has done the injury and another conferred the benefit; for if it is the same man, the force of the injury is quenched by the benefit. For a man who ought to be pardoned even if no merits had gone before is owed, when he harms us after benefits, more than pardon.

Hoc certe, inquis, iustitiae convenit, suum cuique reddere, beneficio gratiam, iniuriae talionem aut certe malam gratiam. Verum erit istud, cum alius iniuriam fecerit, alius beneficium dederit; nam si idem est, beneficio vis iniuriae extinguitur. Nam cui, etiam si merita non antecessissent, oportebat ignosci, post beneficia laedenti plus quam venia debetur.

I do not set an equal price on the two. I value a benefit more than an injury. Not all grateful men know that a benefit is owed; even an imprudent man can be grateful, a raw one, one of the crowd — especially while he is still close to the receiving; but he does not know how much he owes for it. To the wise man alone is it known at what each thing is to be reckoned. For the fool I was just speaking of, even if he is of good will, repays either less than he owes, or at another time than he owes, or in a place where he ought not. What ought to be repaid, he squanders and throws away.

Non pono utrique par pretium. Pluris aestimo beneficium quam iniuriam. Non omnes grati sciunt debere beneficium; potest etiam inprudens et rudis et unus e turba, utique dum prope est ab accepto; ignorat autem, quantum pro eo debeat. Uni sapienti notum est, quanti res quaeque taxanda sit. Nam ille, de quo loquebar modo, stultus etiam si bonae voluntatis est, aut minus quam debet aut alio quam debet tempore aut quo non debet loco reddit. Id quod referendum est, effundit atque abicit.

There is a remarkable precision in certain words, and the usage of old speech marks some things with signs most apt and instructive of duty. Thus we are accustomed to say: "he returned the favor to him." To return is to bring of one’s own accord what you owe. We do not say "he gave back the favor"; for those give back who are dunned, and those who are unwilling, and those who do it anywhere, and those who do it through another. We do not say "he repaid the benefit" or "he discharged it"; no word that suits a debt of money has pleased us.

Mira in quibusdam rebus verborum proprietas est et consuetudo sermonis antiqui quaedam efficacissimis et officia docentibus notis signat. Sic certe solemus loqui: ille illi gratiam rettulit. Referre est ultro, quod debeas, adferre. Non dicimus gratiam reddidit, reddunt enim et qui reposcuntur et qui inviti et qui ubilibet et qui per alium. Non dicimus reposuit beneficium aut solvit; nullum nobis placuit, quod aeri alieno convenit, verbum.

To return is to carry the thing back to him from whom you received it. This word signifies a voluntary repayment; the man who has returned has of his own accord called in the debt upon himself. The wise man will examine everything with himself: how much he received, from whom, when, where, in what way. And so we say that no one knows how to return a favor except the wise man — no more than anyone knows how to give a benefit except the wise man, who, namely, takes more joy in the giving than another in the getting.

Referre est ad eum, a quo acceperis, rem ferre. Haec vox significat voluntariam relationem; qui rettulit, ipse se appellavit. Sapiens omnia examinabit secum: quantum acceperit, a quo, quando, ubi, quemadmodum. Itaque negamus quemquam scire gratiam referre nisi sapientem; non magis quam beneficium dare quisquam scit nisi sapiens, hic scilicet, qui magis dato gaudet quam alius accepto.

Someone counts this among the things we seem to say unexpectedly to everyone — the Greeks call them paradoxa — and says: "No one, then, except the wise man knows how to return a favor? So no one else knows how to pay his creditor what he owes, nor, when he has bought some thing, to pay the price to the seller?" Lest ill will arise against us, know that Epicurus says the same. Metrodorus, at any rate, says that the wise man alone knows how to return a favor.

Hoc aliquis inter illa numerat, quae videmur inopinata omnibus dicere, παράδοξα Graeci vocant, et ait: Nemo ergo scit praeter sapientem referre gratiam? Ergo nec quod debet, creditori suo reponere quisquam scit alius nec, cum emit aliquam rem, pretium venditori persolvere? Ne nobis fiat invidia, scito idem dicere Epicurum. Metrodorus certe ait solum sapientem referre gratiam scire.

Then the same man wonders when we say: "The wise man alone knows how to love. The wise man alone is a friend." And yet returning a favor is a part of love and of friendship — nay, this is more common and falls to more men than true friendship. Then the same man wonders that we say there is no good faith except in the wise man — as though he did not say the same himself. Or does it seem to you that a man has good faith who does not know how to return a favor?

Deinde idem admiratur, cum dicimus: Solus sapiens scit amare. Solus sapiens amicus est. Atqui et amoris et amicitiae pars est referre gratiam, immo hoc magis vulgare est et in plures cadit quam vera amicitia. Deinde idem admiratur, quod dicimus fidem nisi in sapiente non esse, tamquam non ipse idem dicat. An tibi videtur fidem habere, qui referre gratiam nescit?

Let them stop, then, defaming us as though we boasted incredible things, and let them know that in the wise man are the honorable things themselves, in the crowd the images and likenesses of honorable things. No one knows how to return a favor except the wise man. Let the fool too return it, as best he knows and in the way he can; it is knowledge rather than will that he lacks. Willing is not learned.

Desinant itaque infamare nos tam quam incredibilia iactantes et sciant apud sapientem esse ipsa honesta, apud vulgum simulacra rerum honestarum et effigies. Nemo referre gratiam scit nisi sapiens. Stultus quoque, utcumque scit et quemadmodum potest, referat; scientia illi potius quam voluntas desit. Velle non discitur.

The wise man will compare all things among themselves; for a thing becomes greater or less, though it be the same, by time, place, cause. For often riches poured into a house could not do what a thousand denarii given at the right moment could. It matters much whether you made a gift or came to the rescue, whether your generosity saved a man or merely furnished him. Often what is given is small, what follows from it is great. And how great a difference do you think there is, whether someone drew from his own store what he bestowed, or himself received a benefit in order to give one?

Sapiens inter se omnia conparabit, maius enim aut minus fit, quamvis idem sit, tempore, loco, causa, Saepe enim hoc non potuere divitiae in domum infusae, quod opportune dati mille denarii. Multum enim interest, donaveris an succurreris, servaverit illum tua liberalitas an instruxerit. Saepe quod datur, exiguum est, quod sequitur ex eo, magnum. Quantum autem existimas interesse, utrum aliquis quod derat a se, quod praestabat, sumpserit an beneficium acceperit ut daret?

But let us not roll back into the same matters we have sufficiently examined. In this comparison of benefit and injury the good man will indeed judge what is most fair, but he will favor the benefit; toward that side he will be more inclined.

Sed ne in eadem, quae satis scrutati sumus, revolvamur. In hac conparatione beneficii et iniuriae vir bonus iudicabit quidem quod erit aequissimum, sed beneficio favebit; in hanc erit partem proclivior.

But the person usually brings the greatest weight to bear in matters of this kind: "You gave me a benefit in the matter of a slave, you did me an injury in the matter of my father. You saved my son for me, but took away my father." He pursues the other points by which every comparison proceeds, and if the difference is tiny, he will overlook it. Even if it is great — but if it can be forgiven with reverence and good faith preserved — he will remit it; that is, if the whole injury concerns himself alone.

Plurimum autem momenti persona solet adferre in rebus eiusmodi: Dedisti mihi beneficium in servo, iniuriam fecisti in patre. Servasti mihi filium, sed patrem abstulisti. Alia deinceps, per quae procedit omnis conlatio, prosequitur et, si pusillum erit, quod intersit, dissimulabit. Etiam si multum fuerit, sed si id donari salva pietate ac fide poterit, remittet; id est, si ad ipsum tota pertinebit iniuria.

The sum of the matter is this: he will be easy in the exchange. He will allow more to be charged against himself. Unwilling, he will discharge a benefit by setting an injury against it. To this side he will lean, this way he will incline, so that he longs to owe gratitude, longs to return it. For he is mistaken who receives a benefit more gladly than he repays it. As much more cheerful as the man who pays is than the man who borrows, so much more glad ought he to be who frees himself from the very great debt of a benefit received, than he who is most heavily bound by it.

Summa rei haec est: facilis erit in conmutando. Patietur plus inputari sibi. Invitus beneficium per conpensationem iniuriae solvet. In hanc partem inclinabit, huc verget, ut cupiat debere gratiam, cupiat referre. Errat enim, si quis beneficium accipit libentius quam reddit. Quanto hilarior est, qui solvit quam qui mutuatur, tanto debet laetior esse, qui se maximo aere alieno accepti benefici exonerat, quam qui cum maxime obligatur.

For the ungrateful are deceived in this too: that to a creditor they pay, beyond the principal, an extra charge, but the use of benefits they think is free of interest. And these grow with delay, and the later, the more must be paid. He is ungrateful who repays a benefit without interest. And so account will be taken of this matter too, when receipts and expenditures are reckoned together.

Nam in hoc quoque falluntur ingrati, quod creditori quidem praeter sortem extra ordinem numerant, beneficiorum autem usum esse gratuitum putant. Et illa crescunt mora tantoque plus solvendum est, quanto tardius. Ingratus est, qui beneficium reddit sine usura. Itaque huius quoque rei habebitur ratio, cum conterentur accepta et expensa.

We must do everything to be as grateful as possible. For this is a good of our own, just as justice is not, as the crowd believes, a thing pertaining to others; a great part of it returns into itself. There is no one who, when he benefits another, has not benefited himself — I do not say on the ground that the man helped will want to help, the man protected to protect, that a good example returns by a circuit to its doer, just as bad examples come back on their authors, and no pity is shown to those who suffer the injuries they taught could be done by doing them — but on the ground that the reward of all the virtues is in themselves. For they are not practiced for a prize; the wage of a right deed is to have done it.

Omnia facienda sunt, ut quam gratissimi simus. Nostrum enim hoc bonum est, quemadmodum iustitia non est, ut vulgo creditur, ad alios pertinens; magna pars eius in se redit. Nemo non, cum alteri prodest, sibi profuit, non eo nomine dico, quod volet adiuvare adiutus, protegere defensus, quod bonum exemplum circuitu ad facientem revertitur, sicut mala exempla reddunt in auctores nec ulla miseratio contingit iis, qui patiuntur iniurias, quas posse fieri faciendo docuerunt, sed quod virtutum omnium pretium in ipsis est. Non enim exercentur ad praemium; recte facti fecisse merces est.

I am grateful, not so that another, stirred by my earlier example, may bestow on me more gladly, but so that I may do a thing most pleasant and most beautiful; I am grateful, not because it is expedient, but because it delights me. That you may know this is so: if I shall not be allowed to be grateful except by seeming ungrateful, if I shall be able to repay a benefit only under the appearance of an injury, I will, with the most even mind, make for the honorable course straight through the midst of infamy. No one seems to me to value virtue more highly, no one to be more devoted to her, than the man who has lost the reputation of a good man rather than lose the conscience of one.

Gratus sum, non ut alius mihi libentius praestet priore inritatus exemplo, sed ut rem iucundissimam ac pulcherrimam faciam; gratus sum, non quia expedit, sed quia iuvat. Hoc ut scias ita esse, si gratum esse non licebit, nisi ut videar ingratus, si reddere beneficium non aliter quam per speciem iniuriae potero, aequissimo animo ad honestum consilium per mediam infamiam tendam. Nemo mihi videtur pluris aestimare virtutem, nemo illi magis esse devotus quam qui boni viri famam perdidit, ne conscientiam perderet.

And so, as I said, you are grateful for your own good more than for another’s. For to him a common, everyday thing has fallen — to get back what he had given; but to you a great thing, and one proceeding from the most blessed state of mind — to have been grateful. For if malice makes men wretched, and virtue makes them blessed, and to be grateful is a virtue, then you have given back a customary thing and gained an inestimable one: the conscience of a grateful man, which comes to none but a divine and fortunate soul. But the opposite feeling — the height of unhappiness presses upon it; no one who is ungrateful will fail to be wretched. I do not put it off for him: at once he is wretched.

Itaque, ut dixi, maiori tuo quam alterius bono gratus es. Illi enim vulgaris et cottidiana res contigit, recipere, quod dederat, tibi magna et ex beatissimo animi statu profecta, gratum fuisse. Nam si malitia miseros facit, virtus beatos, gratum autem esse virtus est, rem usitatam reddidisti, inaestimabilem consecutus es, conscientiam grati, quae nisi in animum divinum fortunatumque non pervenit. Contrarium autem huic adfectum summa infelicitas urget; nemo si ingratus est, miser erit. Non differo illum, statim miser est.

And so let us shun being ungrateful, not for another’s sake, but for our own. The least and lightest part of wickedness overflows onto others. What is worst in it, and, so to speak, thickest, stays at home and weighs on the one who has it — as our Attalus used to say: "wickedness drinks the greatest part of its own poison." That poison which serpents bring forth for the destruction of others, and keep without harm to themselves, is not like this: this is worst for those who have it.

Itaque ingrati esse vitemus, non aliena causa, sed nostra. Minimum ex nequitia levissimumque ad alios redundat. Quod pessimum ex illa est et, ut ita dicam, spississimum, domi remanet et premit habentem, quemadmodum Attalus noster dicere solebat: malitia ipsa maximam partem veneni sui bibit. Illud venenum, quod serpentes in alienam perniciem proferunt, sine sua continent, non est huic simile; hoc habentibus pessimum est.

The ungrateful man tortures and frets himself; he hates what he has received, because he will have to repay it, and belittles it, while injuries he prolongs and magnifies. And what is more wretched than the man for whom benefits slip away and injuries stick fast? But wisdom, on the contrary, adorns every benefit and commends it to itself and delights itself with the constant remembrance of it.

Torquet ingratus se et macerat; odit, quae accepit, quia redditurus est, et extenuat, iniurias vero dilatat atque auget. Quid autem eo miserius, cui beneficia excidunt haerent iniuriae? At contra sapientia exornat omne beneficium ac sibi ipsa commendat et se adsidua eius commemoratione delectat.

The wicked have one pleasure, and that a brief one, while they are receiving benefits; but from those same benefits a long and lasting joy remains for the wise man. For it is not the receiving but the having received that delights him — which is immortal and unceasing. The things by which he has been hurt he despises, and forgets not through negligence, but willingly.

Malis una voluptas est et haec brevis, dum accipiunt beneficia, ex quibus sapienti longum gaudium manet ac perenne. Non enim illum accipere, sed accepisse delectat, quod inmortale est et adsiduum. Illa contemnit, quibus laesus est, nec obliviscitur per neglegentiam, sed volens.

He does not turn everything to the worse, nor look for someone to charge his mishap to, and he refers men’s faults rather to fortune. He does not put a malicious construction on words or looks; whatever happens, he lightens by interpreting kindly. He remembers the service rather than the offense. As far as he can, he keeps himself in the earlier and better memory, and does not change his mind toward those who have deserved well of him, unless the wrongs done greatly outweigh, and the difference is plain even to one who half-shuts his eyes; and then too, only to this extent: that after the greater injury he is such as he was before the benefit. For when the injury is equal to the benefit, something of goodwill remains in his mind.

Non vertit omnia in peius nec quaerit, cui inputet casum, et peccata hominum ad fortunam potius refert. Non calumniatur verba nec vultus; quicquid accidit, benigne interpretando levat. Non offensae potius quam officii meminit. Quantum potest, in priore ac meliore se memoria detinet nec mutat animum adversus bene meritos, nisi multum male facta praecedunt et manifestum etiam coniventi discrimen est; tunc quoque in hoc dumtaxat, ut talis sit post maiorem iniuriam qualis ante beneficium. Nam cum beneficio par est iniuria, aliquid in animo benivolentiae remanet.

Just as a defendant is acquitted when the votes are equal, and humanity always inclines whatever is doubtful toward the better side, so the mind of the wise man, when merits are equal to misdeeds, will indeed cease to owe, but does not cease to wish to owe; and it does what those do who pay even after a cancellation of debts.

Quemadmodum reus sententiis paribus absolvitur et semper quicquid dubium est humanitas inclinat in melius, sic animus sapientis, ubi paria maleficiis merita sunt, desinet quidem debere, sed non desinit velle debere et hoc facit, quod qui post tabulas novas solvunt.

But no one can be grateful unless he has despised those things over which the crowd is mad; if you want to return a favor, you must be ready even to go into exile, to pour out your blood, to take on poverty, and to let your very innocence be often stained and exposed to undeserved rumors.

Nemo autem gratus esse potest, nisi contempsit ista, propter quae vulgus insanit; si referre vis gratiam, et in exilium eundum est et effundendus sanguis et suscipienda egestas et ipsa innocentia saepe maculanda indignisque obicienda rumoribus.

A grateful man costs himself no small price. We value nothing more dearly than a benefit while we are seeking it, nothing more cheaply once we have received it. Do you ask what it is that makes us forget what we have received? The desire of receiving more. We think not of what has been obtained, but of what is to be sought. Riches, honors, power, and the rest — dear in our opinion, cheap at their own worth — draw us away from the right.

Non parvo sibi constat homo gratus. Nihil carius aestimamus quam beneficium, quamdiu petimus, nihil vilius, cum accepimus. Quaeris quid sit, quod oblivionem nobis acceptorum faciat? Cupiditas accipiendorum. Cogitamus non quid inpetratum, sed quid petendum sit. Abstrahunt a recto divitiae, honores, potentia et cetera, quae opinione nostra cara sunt, pretio suo vilia.

We do not know how to appraise things about which we must deliberate not with reputation, but with the nature of things; these have nothing magnificent to draw our minds to them, except that we have grown used to admiring them. For they are not praised because they are to be craved, but craved because they have been praised; and when the error of individuals has made a public error, the public error makes the error of individuals.

Nescimus aestimare res, de quibus non cum fama, sed cum rerum natura deliberandum est; nihil habent ista magnificum, quo mentes in se nostras trahant, praeter hoc, quod mirari illa consuevimus. Non enim, quia concupiscenda sunt, laudantur, sed concupiscuntur, quia laudata sunt, et cum singulorum error publicum fecerit, singulorum errorem facit publicus.

But just as we believed those things, so let us believe this too on the same people’s word: that nothing is more honorable than a grateful mind. All cities, all nations even from barbarian regions, will cry this aloud together. On this the good and the bad will agree.

Sed quemadmodum illa credidimus, sic et hoc eidem populo credamus, nihil esse grato animo honestius. Omnes hoc urbes, omnes etiam ex barbaris regionibus gentes conclamabunt. In hoc bonis malisque conveniet.

There will be those who praise pleasures, those who would rather have toils; there will be those who call pain the greatest evil, those who do not even call it an evil; one man will admit riches to the highest good, another will say they were devised for the ruin of human life, and that no one is richer than the man for whom fortune finds nothing to give. In so great a diversity of judgments, all will affirm to you with one mouth, as they say, that gratitude must be returned to those who deserve well. On this the crowd, so discordant, will agree; while meanwhile we repay injuries for benefits, and the first cause why a man is ungrateful is that he could not be grateful enough.

Erunt qui voluptates laudent, erunt qui labores malint; erunt qui dolorem maximum malum dicant, erunt qui ne malum quidem appellent; divitias aliquis ad summum bonum admittet, alius illas dicet malo vitae humanae repertas, nihil esse eo locupletius, cui quod donet fortuna non invenit. In tanta iudiciorum diversitate referendam bene merentibus gratiam omnes tibi uno, quod aiunt, ore adfirmabunt. In hoc tam discors turba consentiet; cum interim iniurias pro beneficiis reddimus, et prima causa est, cur quis ingratus sit, si satis gratus esse non potuit.

Madness has been brought to such a pitch that it is a most dangerous thing to confer great benefits on someone; for, because he thinks it shameful not to repay, he does not want there to be anyone for him to repay. "Keep for yourself what you received; I do not ask it back, I do not demand it. Let it have been safe to do you good." There is no hatred more deadly than that born of shame at a benefit violated. Farewell.

Eo perductus est furor, ut periculosissima res sit beneficia in aliquem magna conferre; nam quia putat turpe non reddere, non vult esse, cui reddat. Tibi habe, quod accepisti; non repeto, non exigo. Profuisse tutum sit. Nullum est odium perniciosius quam e beneficii violati pudore. Vale.

I have now ceased to be anxious about you. "Which of the gods," you ask, "did you take as surety?" That one, of course, who deceives no one: a mind that loves the right and the good. The better part of you is in safety. Fortune can do you an injury; what matters more, I do not fear that you will do one to yourself. Go on, the way you have begun, and settle yourself into this manner of life calmly, not softly.

Desii iam de te esse sollicitus. Quem, inquis, deorum sponsorem accepisti? Eum scilicet, qui neminem fallit, animum recti ac boni amatorem. In tuto pars tui melior est. Potest fortuna tibi iniuriam facere; quod ad rem magis pertinet, non timeo, ne tu facias tibi. I, qua ire coepisti et in isto te vitae habitu conpone placide, non molliter.

I would rather fare hard than softly; take "hard" now in the sense the people commonly give it: roughly, harshly, laboriously. We are used to hearing the life of certain men praised, men who are envied: "he lives softly"; what they mean is, "he is soft." For little by little the mind is made effeminate and dissolves into the likeness of its own leisure and the sloth in which it lies. What then? Is it not better for a man even to grow stiff and hard? And then these same dainty men dread the very thing they have made their life resemble. There is a great difference between leisure and a tomb.

Male mihi esse malo quam molliter; male nunc sic excipe, quemadmodum a populo solet dici: dure, aspere, laboriose. Audire solemus sic quorundam vitam laudari, quibus invidetur: molliter vivit; hoc dicunt: mollis est. Paulatim enim effeminatur animus atque in similitudinem otii sui et pigritiae, in qua iacet, solvitur. Quid ergo? Viro non vel obrigescere satius est? Deinde idem delicati timent, cui vitam suam fecere similem. Multum interest inter otium et conditivum.

"What then?" you say. "Is it not better even to lie idle like this than to be whirled about in those eddies of duties?" Both things are detestable, the cramping and the torpor. I think a man who lies among perfumes is no less dead than one who is dragged off by the hook. Leisure without letters is death, and the burial of a living man.

Quid ergo? inquis, non satius est vel sic iacere quam in istis officiorum verticibus volutari? Utraque res detestabilis est, et contractio et torpor. Puto, aeque qui in odoribus iacet, mortuus est quam qui rapitur unco. Otium sine litteris mors est et hominis vivi sepultura.

What good, then, is it to have withdrawn? As though the causes of our anxieties did not pursue us across the seas! What hiding-place is there into which the fear of death does not enter? What repose of life so fortified and drawn up to a height that pain does not terrify it? Wherever you hide yourself, human ills will din around you. Many are outside, which circle us to deceive or to press us; many within, which seethe up in the midst of solitude.

Quid deinde prodest secessisse? Tamquam non trans maria nos sollicitudinum causae persequantur! Quae latebra est, in quam non intret metus mortis? Quae tam emunita et in altum subducta vitae quies, quam non dolor territet? Quacumque te abdideris, mala humana circumstrepent. Multa extra sunt, quae circumeunt nos, quo aut fallant aut urgeant, multa intus, quae in media solitudine exaestuant.

Philosophy must be set around us, an impregnable wall, which fortune, though she assail it with many engines, does not get past. In an unassailable position stands the mind that has abandoned externals and defends itself in its own citadel; below it every missile falls. Fortune does not have, as we suppose, long hands; she seizes no one except the man who clings to her.

Philosophia circumdanda est, inexpugnabilis murus, quem fortuna multis machinis lacessitum non transit. In insuperabili loco stat animus, qui externa deseruit, et arce se sua vindicat; infra illum omne telum cadit. Non habet, ut putamus, fortuna longas manus; neminem occupat nisi haerentem sibi.

And so let us recoil from her as much as we can; which only the knowledge of ourselves and of nature will furnish. Let a man know where he is going, whence he sprang, what is good for him, what evil, what he should seek, what avoid, what that reason is which discerns the things to be sought and the things to be shunned, by which the madness of desires is tamed, the savagery of fears restrained.

Itaque quantum possumus, ab illa resiliamus; quod sola praestabit sui naturaeque cognitio. Sciat, quo iturus sit, unde ortus, quod illi bonum, quod malum sit, quid petat, quid evitet, quae sit illa ratio, quae adpetenda ac fugienda discernat, qua cupiditatum mansuescit insania, timorum saevitia conpescitur.

Now is there need of courage, Aeneas, now of a firm heart.

Nunc animis opus, Aenea, nunc pectore firmo.

Constant meditation will make that heart firm — if you train not your words but your mind, if you prepare yourself against death, against which he will neither hearten nor uplift you who tries to persuade you by quibbles that death is no evil. For I am minded, Lucilius, best of men, to laugh at the Greek absurdities, which, though I wonder at them, I have not yet shaken off.

Faciet autem illud firmum adsidua meditatio, si non verba exercueris, sed animum, si contra mortem te praeparaveris, adversus quam non exhortabitur nec adtollet, qui cavillationibus tibi persuadere temptaverit mortem malum non esse. Libet enim, Lucili virorum optime, ridere ineptias Graecas, quas nondum, quamvis mirer, excussi.

Our Zeno uses this chain of reasoning: "No evil is glorious; but death is glorious; therefore death is not an evil." You have made progress! I am freed from fear; after this I shall not hesitate to stretch out my neck. Will you not speak more sternly, and not raise a laugh at a thing about to die? By Hercules, I could not easily tell you which was the sillier — the man who thought to put out the fear of death with this question, or the man who tried to answer it, as though it had any bearing on the matter.

Zenon noster hac collectione utitur: nullum malum gloriosum est; mors autem gloriosa est; mors ergo non est malum. Profecisti; liberatus sum metu; post hoc non dubitabo porrigere cervicem. Non vis severius loqui nec moritura risum movere? Non mehercules facile tibi dixerim, utrum ineptior fuerit, qui se hac interrogatione iudicavit mortis metum extinguere, an qui hoc, tamquam ad rem pertineret, conatus est solvere.

For the other man too set up a contrary question, born of the fact that we place death among the indifferents, which the Greeks call adiaphora. "Nothing indifferent," he says, "is glorious; but death is glorious; therefore death is not indifferent." You see where this question creeps in: death is not glorious, but to die bravely is glorious. And when you say, "Nothing indifferent is glorious," I grant it to you, on these terms: that I say nothing is glorious except in connection with indifferent things. I call these indifferent — that is, neither goods nor evils — disease, pain, poverty, exile, death.

Nam et ipse interrogationem contrariam opposuit ex eo natam, quod mortem inter indifferentia ponimus, quae ἀδιάφορα Graeci vocant. Nihil, inquit, indifferens gloriosum est; mors autem gloriosum est; ergo mors non est indifferens. Haec interrogatio vides ubi obrepat: mors non est gloriosa, sed fortiter mori gloriosum est. Et cum dicis: indifferens nihil gloriosum est, concedo tibi ita, ut dicam nihil gloriosum esse nisi circa indifferentia. Tamquam indifferentia esse dico, id est nec bona nec mala, morbum, dolorem, paupertatem, exilium, mortem.

None of these is glorious in itself, yet nothing is glorious without them. For it is not poverty that is praised, but the man whom poverty does not lower or bend. It is not exile that is praised, but the man who went into exile as though he were sending another. It is not pain that is praised, but the man whom pain compelled to nothing. No one praises death, but the man whose death carried off his mind before it could trouble it.

Nihil horum per se gloriosum est, nihil tamen sine his. Laudatur enim non paupertas, sed ille, quem paupertas non summittit nec incurvat. Laudatur non exilium, sed ille qui in exilium ivit tanquam misisset. Laudatur non dolor, sed ille, quem nihil coegit dolor. Nemo mortem laudat, sed eum, cuius mors ante abstulit animum quam conturbavit.

All these things in themselves are neither honorable nor glorious, but whatever virtue has approached and handled among them, she makes honorable and glorious; they are set in the middle. It matters whether malice or virtue has laid a hand on them. For that death which in Cato is glorious is at once, in Brutus, base and a thing to blush at. For this is the Brutus who, when, about to die, he sought delays for his death, withdrew to relieve his bowels, and, summoned to death and ordered to offer his neck, said: "I will offer it, so may I live." What madness is it to flee, when you cannot go backward? "I will offer it, so may I live." He all but added: "even under Antony." O man fit to be handed back to life!

Omnia ista per se non sunt honesta nec gloriosa, sed quicquid ex illis virtus adiit tractavitque, honestum et gloriosum facit; illa in medio posita sunt; interest, utrum malitia illis an virtus manum admoverit. Mors enim illa, quae in Catone gloriosa est, in Bruto statim turpis est et erubescenda. Hic est enim Brutus, qui cum periturus mortis moras quaereret, ad exonerandum ventrem secessit et evocatus ad mortem iussusque praebere cervicem: praebebo, inquit, ita vivam. Quae dementia est fugere, cum retro ire non possis? Praebebo, inquit, ita vivam. Paene adiecit: vel sub Antonio. O hominem dignum, qui vitae dederetur!

But, as I had begun to say, you see that death itself is neither an evil nor a good; Cato used it most honorably, Brutus most basely. Every thing takes on, with virtue added, the comeliness it did not have. We call a bedroom bright; this same room is utterly dark at night.

Sed, ut coeperam dicere, vides ipsam mortem nec malum esse nec bonum; Cato illa honestissime usus est, turpissime Brutus. Omnis res quod non habuit decus, virtute addita sumit. Cubiculum lucidum dicimus, hoc idem obscurissimum est nocte.

Day pours light into it, night snatches it away; so to those things we call indifferent and middle — riches, strength, beauty, honors, kingship, and on the other side death, exile, ill health, pains, and whatever else we have feared less or more — either malice or virtue gives the name of good or evil. A lump of metal is in itself neither hot nor cold; thrown into the furnace it grows hot, plunged into water it grows cold. Death is honorable through that which is honorable, that is, through virtue and a mind that despises the extremes.

Dies illi lucem infundit, nox eripit; sic istis, quae a nobis indifferentia ac media dicuntur, divitiis, viribus, formae, honoribus, regno et contra morti, exilio, malae valetudini,doloribus quaeque alia aut minus aut magis pertimuimus, aut malitia aut virtus dat boni vel mali nomen. Massa per se nec calida nec frigida est; in fornacem coniecta concaluit, in aquam demissa refrixit. Mors honesta est per illud, quod honestum est, id est virtus et animus extrema contemnens.

There is among these things we call middle, Lucilius, a great distinction too. For death is not indifferent in the way that whether you have an even or an odd number of hairs is. Death is among those things which are not evils, yet have the appearance of an evil; there is self-love, and an inborn will to persist and to preserve oneself, and a loathing of dissolution, because it seems to snatch many goods from us and to lead us out of this abundance of things to which we have grown accustomed. This too estranges us from death: that we already know these things, but what we shall pass on to we do not know what they are like, and we shudder at the unknown. There is, besides, a natural fear of the darkness into which death is believed to lead.

Est et horum, Lucili, quae appellamus media, grande discrimen. Non enim sic mors indifferens est, quomodo utrum capillos pares an inpares habeas. Mors inter illa est, quae mala quidem non sunt, tamen habent mali speciem; sui amor est et permanendi conservandique se insita voluntas atque aspernatio dissolutionis, quia videtur multa nobis bona eripere et nos ex hac, cui adsuevimus, rerum copia educere. Illa quoque res morti nos alienat, quod haec iam novimus, illa, ad quae transituri sumus, nescimus, qualia sint, et horremus ignota. Naturalis praeterea tenebrarum metus est, in quas adductura mors creditur.

The huge doorkeeper of Orcus, couched on half-gnawed bones in his bloody cave, with eternal baying terrifies the bloodless shades.

Ingens ianitor Orci Ossa super recubans antro semesa cruento, Aeternum latrans exsangues terreat umbras.

With these things standing against us, which a long persuasion pours over us, why should it not be glorious to suffer death bravely, and among the greatest works of the human mind? That mind will never rise to virtue, if it believes death an evil; it will rise, if it thinks it indifferent. The nature of things does not allow that anyone approach with a great heart what he judges an evil; he will come sluggishly and hesitantly. But nothing is glorious that is done by one unwilling and shrinking back; virtue does nothing because it must.

His adversantibus, quae nobis offundit longa persuasio, fortiter pati mortem quidni gloriosum sit et inter maxima opera mentis humanae? Quae numquam ad virtutem exsurget, si mortem malum esse crediderit; exsurget, si putabit indifferens esse. Non recipit rerum natura, ut aliquis magno animo accedat ad id, quod malum iudicat; pigre veniet et cunctanter. Non est autem gloriosum, quod ab invito et tergiversante fit; nihil facit virtus, quia necesse est.

Yield not to ills, but go more boldly against them, where your fortune allows you.

Tu ne cede malis, sed contra audentior ito Qua tua te fortuna sinet.

You will not go more boldly, if you believe those things evils. This must be taken out of the breast; otherwise a misgiving will hesitate, delaying the charge. He will be handed over to the very thing that must be attacked. Our people, indeed, want Zeno’s question to seem true, and the other, opposed to it, fallacious and false. I do not reduce these things to the law of dialectic and to those knots of a most decrepit artifice. I judge that the whole kind of thing must be driven out, by which the man questioned thinks himself trapped and, led to a confession, answers one thing and thinks another. For truth one must act more simply; against fear, more bravely.

Non ibis audentior, si mala illa esse credideris. Eximendum hoc e pectore est; alioqui haesitabit inpetum moratura suspicio. Tradetur in id, quod invadendum est. Nostri quidem videri volunt Zenonis interrogationem veram esse, fallacem autem alteram et falsam, quae illi opponitur. Ego non redigo ista ad legem dialecticam et ad illos artificii veternosissimi nodos. Totum genus istuc exturbandum iudico, quo circumscribi se, qui interrogatur, existimat et ad confessionem perductus aliud respondet, aliud putat. Pro veritate simplicius agendum est, contra metum fortius.

These very things which they spin out, I would rather unravel and weigh, in order to persuade, not to impose. When one is about to lead an army into the line to meet death for wives and children, how does he exhort them? I give you the Fabii, transferring the whole war of the commonwealth onto a single house. I show you the Spartans posted in the very narrows of Thermopylae. They hope neither for victory nor for return. That place is to be their tomb.

Haec ipsa, quae volvuntur ab illis, solvere malim et expendere, ut persuadcam persuadeam, non ut inponam. In aciem educturus exercitum pro coniugibus ac liberis mortem obiturum quomodo exhortantur? Do tibi Fabios totum rei publicae bellum in unam transferentes domum. Laconas tibi ostendo in ipsis Thermopylarum angustiis positos. Nec victoriam sperant nec reditum. Ille locus illis sepulchrum futurus est.

How do you exhort them to take the ruin of a whole nation upon their interposed bodies and to yield their life rather than their post? Will you say: "What is evil is not glorious; death is glorious; therefore death is not evil"? Oh, what an effective harangue! Who after this would hesitate to fling himself onto the hostile blades and die standing? But how bravely that Leonidas addressed them! "So, comrades," he said, "breakfast as men about to dine in the underworld." The food did not swell in their mouths, did not stick in their throats, did not slip from their hands; eagerly they pledged themselves both to the breakfast and to the dinner.

Quemadmodum exhortaris, ut totius gentis ruinam obiectis corporibus excipiant et vita potius quam loco cedant? Dices: quod malum est, gloriosum non est; mors gloriosa est; mors ergo non malum? O efficacem contionem! Quis post hanc dubitet se infestis ingerere mucronibus et stans mori! At ille Leonidas quam fortiter illos adlocutus est! Sic, inquit, commilitones, prandete tamquam apud inferos cenaturi. Non in ore crevit cibus, non haesit in faucibus, non elapsus est manibus; alacres et ad prandium illi promiserunt et ad cenam.

What of that Roman commander who, when he had sent soldiers to seize a position, since they were to go through a huge army of the enemy, addressed them thus: "It is necessary, comrades, to go yonder; it is not necessary to come back"? You see how simple and commanding virtue is; which of mortals can your entrapments make braver, which more upright? They break the mind, which is never less to be cramped and forced into minute and thorny things than when something great is being framed.

Quid? Dux ille Romanus, qui ad occupandum locum milites missos, cum per ingentem hostium exercitum ituri essent, sic adlocutus est: ire, commilitones, illo necesse est, unde redire non est necesse. Vides, quam simplex et imperiosa virtus sit; quem mortalium circumscriptiones vestrae fortiorem facere, quem erectiorem possunt? Frangunt animum, qui numquam minus contrahendus est et in minuta ac spinosa cogendus, quam cum aliquid grande componitur.

Not from three hundred, but from all mortals must the fear of death be taken away. How do you teach them it is not an evil? How do you overcome the opinions of a whole age, with which infancy is at once steeped? What aid do you find for human weakness? What do you say, by which, inflamed, they may rush into the midst of dangers? By what speech do you turn aside this consensus of fearing, by what strength of talent the persuasion of the human race, set firm against you? Do you compose captious words for me and weave little questions? Great monsters are struck by great weapons.

Non trecentis, sed omnibus mortalibus mortis timor detrahi debet. Quomodo illos doces malum non esse? Quomodo opiniones totius aevi, quibus protinus infantia inbuitur, evincis? Quod auxilium invenis inbecillitati humanae? Quid dicis, quo inflammati in media pericula inruant? Qua oratione hunc timendi consensum, quibus ingeni viribus obnixam contra te persuasionem humani generis avertis? Verba mihi captiosa conponis et interrogatiunculas nectis? Magnis telis magna portenta feriuntur.

That savage serpent in Africa, more terrible to the Roman legions than the war itself, they assailed in vain with arrows and slings; not even by the Pythian’s shafts was it to be cowed, since its vast bulk, solid in proportion to the hugeness of its body, threw back the iron and whatever human hands had hurled. In the end it was broken by millstone-sized rocks. And against death do you hurl such tiny darts? Do you meet a lion with an awl? Sharp are these things you say: nothing is sharper than an ear of grain. Subtlety itself renders some things useless and ineffective. Farewell.

Serpentem illam in Africa saevam et Romanis legionibus bello ipso terribiliorem frustra sagittis fundisque petierunt; ne Pythio quidem venerabilis erat, cum ingens magnitudo pro vastitate corporis solida ferrum et quicquid humanae torserant manus reiceret. Molaribus demum fracta saxis est. Et adversus mortem tu tam minuta iacularis? Subula leonem excipis? Acuta sunt ista, quae dicis: nihil est acutius arista. Quaedam inutilia et inefficacia ipsa subtilitas reddit. Vale.

You bid me report my days to you, each one and in full; you judge well of me, if you think there is nothing in them that I would hide. And indeed one ought so to live, as if we lived in plain sight; so to think, as if someone could look into the inmost breast — and someone can. For what good is it that something be hidden from a man? Nothing is shut to god. He is present in our minds and comes in among the midst of our thoughts — comes in, I say, as one who at some times departs.

Singulos dies tibi meos et quidem totos indicari iubes; bene de me iudicas, si nihil esse in illis putas, quod abscondam. Sic certe vivendum est, tamquam in conspectu vivamus; sic cogitandum, tamquam aliquis in pectus intimum introspicere possit; et potest. Quid enim prodest ab homine aliquid esse secretum? Nihil deo clusum est. Interest animis nostris et cogitationibus mediis intervenit—sic intervenit, dico, tamquam aliquando discedat.

I will do, then, what you bid, and gladly write you what I do and in what order. I will watch myself at once and — what is most useful — review my day. This is what makes us worst: that no one looks back over his own life. We think of what we are going to do. And yet the plan for the future comes out of the past.

Faciam ergo, quod iubes, et quid agam et quo ordine, libenter tibi scribam. Observabo me protinus et, quod est utilissimum, diem meum recognoscam. Hoc nos pessimos facit, quod nemo vitam suam respicit. Quid facturi simus cogitamus. Atqui consilium futuri ex praeterito venit.

Today is whole; no one has snatched anything from it for me. It was all divided between my couch and my reading. The least was given to bodily exercise, and on this score I give thanks to old age: it costs me little; as soon as I have stirred, I am tired. And this is the end of exercise even for the strongest.

Hodiernus dies solidas est; nemo ex illo quicquam mihi eripuit. Totus inter stratum lectionemque divisus est. Minimum exercitationi corporis datum, et hoc nomine ago gratias senectuti: non magno mihi constat; cum me movi, lassus sum. Hic autem est exercitationis etiam fortissimis finis.

You ask after my trainers? One is enough for me — the Pharian boy, as you know, a likable one; but he will be changed. By now I am looking for someone younger still. He, indeed, says that he and I are at the same crisis, since the teeth of both of us are falling out. But already I scarcely keep up with him as he runs, and within very few days I shall not be able to; see what daily exercise accomplishes. Quickly a great gap opens between two who go in opposite directions. At the same moment he is climbing, I am descending, and you are not unaware how much faster one of these happens than the other. I lied: for now our age does not descend, but falls.

Progymnastas meos quaeris? Unus mihi sufficit Pharius puer, ut scis, amabilis, sed mutabitur. Iam aliquem teneriorem quaero. Hic quidem ait nos eandem crisin habere, quia utrique dentes cadunt. Sed iam vix illum adsequor currentem et intra paucissimos dies non potero; vide, quid exercitatio cotidiana proficiat. Cito magnum intervallum fit inter duos in diversum euntes. Eodem tempore ille adscendit, ego descendo, nec ignoras, quanto ex his velocius alterum fiat. Mentitus sum; iam enim aetas nostra non descendit, sed cadit.

You ask how today’s contest came out for us? We did what rarely happens to runners — we made it a draw. From this fatigue, rather than exercise, I went down into cold water; with me "cold" means "not warm enough." I, that great cold-bather, who on the Kalends of January used to salute the Euripus, who, just as on the New Year I took my omens for reading, writing, saying something, so I would inaugurate it by leaping into the Aqua Virgo — I first shifted my camp to the Tiber, then to this tub, which, when I am at my strongest and all is done in good faith, only the sun warms. There is not much left for me before the bath proper.

Quomodo tamen hodiernum certamen nobis cesserit quaeris? Quod raro cursoribus evenit, hieran fecimus. Ab hac fatigatione magis quam exercitatione in frigidam descendi; hoc apud me vocatur parum calda. Ille tantus psychrolutes, qui kalendis Ianuariis euripum salutabam, qui anno novo quemadmodum legere, scribere, dicere aliquid, sic auspicabar in Virginem desilire, primum ad Tiberim transtuli castra, deinde ad hoc solium, quod, cum fortissimus sum et omnia bona fide fiunt, sol temperat. Non multum mihi ad balneum superest.

Then dry bread and a lunch without a table, after which the hands need no washing. I sleep very little. You know my habit: I use the briefest sleep and, as it were, unyoke for a moment. It is enough for me to have stopped being awake. Sometimes I know that I have slept, sometimes I only suspect it.

Panis deinde siccus et sine mensa prandium, post quod non sunt lavandae manus. Dormio minimum. Consuetudinem meam nosti: brevissimo somno utor et quasi interiungo. Satis est mihi vigilare desisse. Aliquando dormisse me scio, aliquando suspicor.

Look, the shout of the games is roaring close by. My ears are struck by some sudden, universal cry. It does not knock my thinking out of me, does not even interrupt it. I bear the din most patiently. Many voices, confused into one, are to me like a wave, or the wind lashing a wood, and the other things that sound without meaning.

Ecce circensium obstrepit clamor. Subita aliqua et universa voce feriuntur aures meae. Nec cogitationem meam excutiunt, ne interrumpunt quidem. Fremitum patientissime fero. Multae voces et in unum confusae pro fluctu mihi sunt aut vento silvam verberante et ceteris sine intellectu sonantibus.

What, then, is it now that I have set my mind to? I will tell you. There remains over from yesterday a thought: what the most prudent men meant, who made the proofs of the greatest matters trifling and tangled — proofs which, however true they are, are yet like a lie.

Quid ergo est nunc, cui animum adiecerim? Dicam. Superest ex hesterno mihi cogitatio: quid sibi voluerint prudentissimi viri, qui rerum maximarum probationes levissimas et perplexas fecerunt, quae ut sint verae, tamen mendacio similes sunt.

Zeno wants to deter us from drunkenness — Zeno, a very great man, founder of this most valiant and most holy school. Hear, then, how he concludes that the good man will not get drunk: "No one entrusts a confidential talk to a drunk man; but to a good man one entrusts it; therefore the good man will not be drunk." Mark how he is laughed at by a like question set against him. For it is enough to offer one of many: "No one entrusts a confidential talk to a sleeping man; but to a good man one entrusts it; therefore the good man does not sleep."

Vult nos ab ebrietate deterrere Zenon, vir maximus, huius sectae fortissimae ac sanctissimae conditor. Audi ergo, quemadmodum colligat virum bonum non futurum ebrium: ebrio secretum sermonem nemo committit; viro autem bono committit; ergo vir bonus ebrius non erit. Quemadmodum opposita interrogatione simili derideatur, adtende. Satis est enim unam ponere ex multis: dormienti nemo secretum sermonem committit; viro autem bono committit; vir bonus ergo non dormit.

In the one way he can, Posidonius pleads the case of our Zeno; but not even so, in my judgment, can it be pleaded. For he says that "drunk" is said in two ways: in one, when someone is heavy with wine and not master of himself; in the other, if he is in the habit of getting drunk and is subject to this vice. The one Zeno means, he says, is the man habitually drunk, not the man who is drunk now. And to this man no one would entrust secrets that he might blab out through wine.

Quo uno modo potest, Posidonius Zenonis nostri causam agit, sed ne sic quidem, ut existimo, agi potest. Ait enim ebrium duobus modis dici: altero, cum aliquis vino gravis est et inpos sui; altero, si solet ebrius fieri et huic obnoxius vitio est. Hunc a Zenone dici, qui soleat fieri ebrius, non qui sit. Huic autem neminem commissurum arcana, quae per vinum eloqui possit.

But this is false. For that first question takes in the man who is drunk, not the man who is going to be. For you will grant there is a great difference between the drunk man and the drunkard. It is possible both that a man who is drunk is so for the first time and does not have this vice, and that a man who is a drunkard is often out of his drunkenness. And so I understand what is usually signified by that word — especially when it is put forward by a man professing carefulness and weighing his words. Add now that, if Zeno understood this and wanted us to understand it, he sought, by the ambiguity of a word, an opening for trickery — which must not be done where the truth is sought.

Quod est falsum. Prima enim illa interrogatio conplectitur eum, qui est ebrius, non eum, qui futurus est. Plurimum enim interesse concedes et inter ebrium et ebriosum. Potest et qui ebrius est, tunc primum esse nec habere hoc vitium, et qui ebriosus est, saepe extra ebrietatem esse. Itaque id intellego, quod significari verbo isto solet, praesertim cum ab homine diligentiam professo ponatur et verba examinante. Adice nunc quod, si hoc intellexit Zenon et nos intellegere voluit, ambiguitate verbi quaesiit locum fraudi, quod faciendum non est, ubi veritas quaeritur.

But suppose he did mean this; what follows is false — that to a man in the habit of getting drunk a confidential talk is not entrusted. For think how many soldiers, not always sober, the general and the tribune and the centurion have charged with things to be kept silent. In that murder of Gaius Caesar — I mean the one who, after overcoming Pompey, held the commonwealth — as much was trusted to Tillius Cimber as to Gaius Cassius. Cassius drank water all his life; Tillius Cimber was both too much given to wine and a brawler. He himself spoke to this point: "Shall I," he said, "put up with anyone — I, who cannot put up with wine?"

Sed sane hoc senserit; quod sequitur, falsum est, ei qui soleat ebrius fieri, non committi sermonem secretum. Cogita enim, quam multis militibus non semper sobriis et imperator et tribunus et centurio tacenda mandaverint. De illa C. Caesaris caede, illius dico, qui superata Pompeio rem publicam tenuit, tam creditum est Tillio Cimbro quam C Cassio. Cassius tota vita aquam bibit, Tillius Cimber et nimius erat in vino et scordalus. In hanc rem locutus est ipse: ego, inquit, quemquam feram, qui vinum ferre non possum?

Let each man now name to himself those to whom, he knows, wine is ill entrusted but a confidence well; yet I will set down one example that occurs to me, lest it slip away. For life must be furnished with illustrious examples. Let us not always take refuge in the ancients.

Sibi quisque nunc nominet eos, quibus scit et vinum male credi et sermonem bene, unum tamen exemplum, quod occurrit mihi, referam, ne intercedat Instruenda est enim vita exemplis inlustribus. Non semper confugiamus ad vetera.

Lucius Piso, the guardian of the city, was drunk from the time he first got drunk. He spent the greater part of the night at the table; he slept until nearly the sixth hour; this was his morning. Yet he administered his office, which comprised the protection of the city, most diligently. To him the deified Augustus gave secret commissions, when he set him over Thrace, which he subdued, and Tiberius did so, setting out for Campania, when he was leaving behind in the city many things both suspect and hateful.

L. Piso, urbis custos, ebrius ex quo semel factus est, fuit. Maiorem noctis partem in convivio exigebat; usque in horam fere sextam dormiebat; hoc eius erat matutinum. Officium tamen suum, quo tutela urbis continebatur, diligentissime administravit. Huic et divus Augustus dedit secreta mandata, cum illum praeponeret Thraciae, quam perdomuit, et Tiberius proficiscens in Campaniam, cum multa in urbe et suspecta relinqueret et invisa.

I suppose that, because Piso’s drunkenness had turned out well for him, Tiberius afterward made Cossus prefect of the city — a grave, restrained man, but sunk and soaked in wine, so much so that once he was carried out of the Senate, into which he had come from a banquet, overcome by an unwakeable sleep. Yet to him Tiberius wrote many things in his own hand which he judged should not be entrusted even to his own attendants. No secret, private or public, slipped from Cossus.

Puto, quia illi bene cesserat Pisonis ebrietas, postea Cossum fecit urbis praefectum, virum gravem, moderatum, sed mersum et vino madentem, adeo ut ex senatu aliquando, in quem e convivio venerat, obpressus inexcitabili somno tolleretur. Huic tamen Tiberius multa sua manu scripsit, quae committenda ne ministris quidem suis iudicabat. Nullum Cosso aut privatum secretum aut publicum elapsum est.

And so let us remove from the field those rhetorical pieces: "The mind bound fast by drunkenness is not in its own power. As by new wine the very jars are burst, and all that lies at the bottom the force of the heat throws up to the top, so, when the wine seethes, whatever lies hidden at the bottom is carried up and comes out into the open. Men loaded with wine, just as they do not keep down their food when the wine overflows, so neither do they keep a secret. What is their own and another’s alike they pour out."

Itaque declamationes istas de medio removeamus: Non est animus in sua potestate ebrietate devinctus. Quemadmodum musto dolia ipsa rumpuntur et omne, quod in imo iacet, in summam partem vis caloris eiectat; sic vino exaestuante, quicquid in imo iacet abditum, effertur et prodit in medium. Onerati mero quemadmodum non continent cibum vino redundante, ita ne secretum quidem. Quod suum alienumque est, pariter effundunt.

But although this is wont to happen, so too is the other: that we deliberate about necessary matters with those whom we know to drink rather freely. False, then, is this, which is put forward by way of a defense, that to a man habitually drunk nothing is told in confidence. How much better it is openly to accuse drunkenness and to set out its vices, which even a tolerable man would avoid, much more the perfect man and the sage, for whom it is enough to quench his thirst, who, even if at some time a merriment prolonged for another’s sake has urged him on, yet stops short of drunkenness.

Sed quamvis hoc soleat accidere, ita et illud solet, ut cum iis, quos sciamus libentius bibere, de rebus necessariis deliberemus. Falsum ergo est hoc, quod patrocinii loco ponitur, ei qui soleat ebrius fieri, non dari tacitum. Quanto satius est aperte accusare ebrietatem et vitia eius exponere, quae etiam tolerabilis homo vitaverit, nedum perfectus ac sapiens, cui satis est sitim extinguere, qui, etiam si quando hortata est hilaritas aliena causa producta longius, tamen citra ebrietatem resistit.

For about that we shall see later — whether the wise man’s mind is disturbed by too much wine and does the things drunk men do; meanwhile, if you want to conclude that the good man ought not to get drunk, why do you proceed by syllogisms? Say how shameful it is to pour into oneself more than one holds and not to know the measure of one’s own stomach; how many things drunk men do at which they blush when sober; that drunkenness is nothing other than a voluntary madness. Stretch that drunken condition over several days: will you doubt that it is insanity?

Nam de illo videbimus, an sapientis animus nimio vino turbetur et faciat ebriis solita; interim, si hoc colligere vis virum bonum non debere ebrium fieri, cur syllogismis agis? Dic, quam turpe sit plus sibi ingerere quam capiat et stomachi sui non nosse mensuram, quam multa ebrii faciant, quibus sobrii erubescant, nihil aliud esse ebrietatem quam voluntariam insaniam. Extende in plures dies illum ebrii habitum; numquid de furore dubitabis?

Even now it is no less madness, only shorter. Recall the example of Alexander of Macedon, who ran his sword through Clitus, dearest and most faithful to him, in the midst of a feast, and, when he grasped the crime, wanted to die — and certainly ought to have. Drunkenness both kindles and lays bare every vice, and removes the modesty that stands in the way of evil attempts. For more men abstain from forbidden things through shame at sinning than through good will.

Nunc quoque non est minor, sed brevior. Refer Alexandri Macedonis exemplum, qui Clitum, carissimum sibi ac fidelissimum, inter epulas transfodit et intellecto facinore mori voluit, certe debuit. Omne vitium ebrietas et incendit et detegit, obstantem malis conatibus verecundiam removet. Plures enim pudore peccandi quam bona voluntate prohibitis abstinent.

When too much force of wine has taken possession of the mind, whatever evil was lurking emerges. Drunkenness does not make vices, but draws them out; then the lustful man does not even wait for a bedroom, but grants his desires, without delay, as much as they demanded; then the unchaste man confesses and publishes his disease; then the insolent man holds back neither tongue nor hand. Pride grows in the arrogant, cruelty in the savage, malice in the envious. Every vice is loosed and comes out.

Ubi possedit animum nimia vis vini, quicquid mali latebat, emergit. Non facit ebrietas vitia, sed protrahit; tunc libidinosus ne cubiculum quidem expectat, sed cupiditatibus suis quantum petierunt sine dilatione permittit; tunc inpudicus morbum profitetur ac publicat; tunc petulans non linguam, non manum continet. Crescit insolenti superbia, crudelitas saevo, malignitas livido. Omne vitium laxatur et prodit.

Add that ignorance of oneself, the doubtful and ill-articulated words, the unsteady eyes, the wandering step, the spinning of the head, the very roof seeming to move as if some whirlwind were turning the whole house about, the torments of the stomach when the wine seethes up and distends the very entrails. Yet then it is somehow tolerable, while its own force is on him; what of it when sleep has spoiled it, and what was drunkenness has become indigestion?

Adice illam ignorationem sui, dubia et parum explanata verba, incertos oculos, gradum errantem, vertiginem capitis, tecta ipsa mobilia velut aliquo turbine circumagente totam domum, stomachi tormenta, cum effervescit merum ac viscera ipsa distendit. Tunc tamen utcumque tolerabile est, dum illi vis sua est; quid, cum somno vitiatur et quae ebrietas fuit, cruditas facta est?

Think what disasters drunkenness has wrought on a public scale; this has handed over to the enemy the fiercest and most warlike nations; this has thrown open walls defended through many years of stubborn war; this has driven the most defiant, those refusing the yoke, under another’s will; this has subdued by wine men unconquered in the field.

Cogita, quas clades ediderit publica ebrietas; haec acerrimas gentes bellicosasque hostibus tradidit, haec multorum annorum pertinaci bello defensa moenia patefecit, haec contumacissimos et iugum recusantes in alienum egit arbitrium, haec invictos acie mero domuit.

Alexander, of whom I just made mention — so many marches, so many battles, so many winters through which he had passed, the difficulty of seasons and places overcome, so many rivers falling from the unknown, so many seas, let him go safe; it was intemperance in drinking, and that Herculean and fatal cup, that laid him in the grave.

Alexandrum, cuius modo feci mentionem, tot itinera, tot proelia, tot hiemes, per quas victa temporum locorumque difficultate transierat, tot flumina ex ignoto cadentia, tot maria tutum dimiserunt; intemperantia Iubendi et ille Herculaneus ac fatalis scyphus condidit.

What glory is it to hold much wine? When the palm has been yours, and men laid low by sleep and vomiting have refused your toasts, when you have outlasted the whole company, when you have beaten them all by that magnificent prowess and no one has held so much wine — you are beaten by the cask.

Quae gloria est capere multum? Cum penes te palma fuerit et propinationes tuas strati somno ac vomitantes recusaverint, cum superstes toti convivio fueris, cum omnes viceris virtute magnifica et nemo vini tam capax fuerit, vincens a dolio.

Mark Antony, a great man and of noble talent — what else ruined him and carried him over into foreign manners and un-Roman vices but drunkenness, and a love for Cleopatra no less than for wine? This it was that made him an enemy of the commonwealth, this that made him no match for his enemies; this made him cruel, when the heads of the leading men of the state were brought in to him at dinner, when amid the most lavish banquets and regal luxuries he would examine the faces and hands of the proscribed, when, heavy with wine, he nonetheless thirsted for blood. It was intolerable that he got drunk while he did these things; how much more intolerable that he did these very things in his drunkenness itself!

M. Antonium, magnum virum et ingenii nobilis, quae alia res perdidit et in externos mores ac vitia non Romana traiecit quam ebrietas nec minor vino Cleopatrae amor? Haec illum res hostem rei publicae, haec hostibus suis imparem reddidit; haec crudelem fecit, cum capita principum civitatis cenanti referrentur, cum inter apparatissimas epulas luxusque regales ora ac manus proscriptorum recognosceret, cum vino gravis sitiret tamen sanguinem. Intolerabile erat, quod ebrius fiebat, cum haec faceret; quanto intolerabilius, quod haec in ipsa ebrietate faciebat!

Cruelty generally follows wine-bibbing; for the soundness of the mind is corrupted and exasperated. As long illnesses make men querulous and difficult and rabid at the slightest offense, so continual bouts of drunkenness make minds savage. For since they are often not in possession of themselves, the habit of madness hardens, and the vices conceived in wine are strong even without it.

Fere vinolentiam crudelitas sequitur; vitiatur enim exasperaturque sanitas mentis. Ut querulos difficilesque faciunt diutini morbi et ad minimam rabidos offensionem, ita ebrietates continuae efferant animos. Nam eum saepe apud se non sint, consuetudo insaniae durat et vitia vino concepta etiam sine illo valent.

Say, then, why the wise man ought not to get drunk. Show the ugliness and the danger of the thing by facts, not by words. What is easiest, prove that these so-called pleasures, once they have passed the measure, are punishments. For if you argue that the wise man gets drunk on much wine and keeps his right course even though tipsy, you may as well conclude that he will not die though he drinks poison, will not sleep though he takes a sleeping-draught, and that, having swallowed hellebore, he will eject and void whatever sticks in his entrails. But if his feet give way, his tongue is unsteady, what reason is there for you to suppose him part sober and part drunk? Farewell.

Dic ergo, quare sapiens non debeat ebrius fieri. Deformitatem rei et inportunitatem ostende rebus, non verbis. Quod facillimum est, proba istas, quae voluptates vocantur, ubi transcenderant modum, poenas esse. Nam si illud argumentaberis, sapientem multo vino inebriari et retinere rectum tenorem, etiam si temulentus sit; licet colligas nec veneno poto moriturum nec sopore sumpto dormiturum nec elleboro accepto, quicquid in visceribus haerebit, eiecturum deiecturumque. Sed si temptantur pedes, lingua non constat, quid est, quare illum existimes in parte sobrium esse, in parte ebrium? Vale.

Those journeys of mine, which shake off my sluggishness, I judge to benefit both my health and my studies. Why they help my health, you see: since love of letters makes me lazy and careless of the body, I get my exercise through another’s labor. Why they profit my study, I will show: I have not for a moment withdrawn from my reading. And reading is necessary, as I hold — first, that I be not content with myself alone; then, that when I have learned what others have inquired into, I may both pass judgment on their discoveries and think about what is yet to be found. Reading nourishes the mind and refreshes it when worn out with study — though not without study even so.

Itinera ista, quae segnitiam mihi excutiunt, et valitudini meae prodesse iudico et studiis. Quare valitudinem adiuvent, vides: cum pigrum me et neglegentem corporis litterarum amor faciat, aliena opera exerceor; studio quare prosint, indicabo: a lectionibus nihil recessi. Sunt autem, ut existimo, necessariae, primum ne sim me uno contentus; deinde ut, cum ab aliis quaesita cognovero, tum et de inventis iudicem et cogitem de inveniendis. Alit lectio ingenium et studio fatigatum, non sine studio tamen, reficit.

We ought neither only to write nor only to read; the one will sadden our powers and drain them — the pen, I mean — the other will loosen and dilute them. We must pass back and forth between the two, and temper the one by the other, so that whatever has been gathered by reading the pen may reduce into a body.

Nec scribere tantum nec tantum legere debemus; altera res contristabit vires et exhauriet, de stilo dico, altera solvet ac diluet. Invicem hoc et illo commeandum est et alterum altero temperandum, ut quicquid lectione collectum est, stilus redigat in corpus.

the liquid honey / they pack, and swell the cells with the sweet nectar.

liquentia mella / Stipant et dulci distendunt nectare cellas.

About these it is not sufficiently agreed whether they draw from the flowers a juice that is at once honey, or whether they change what they have gathered into this flavor by a certain mixing and a property of their own breath. For some hold that they have not the art of making honey but of collecting it. They say that among the Indians honey is found on the leaves of reeds, bred either by the dew of that climate or by the sweet and somewhat thick moisture of the reed itself. In our own plants too, they say, the same power is set, though less manifest and remarkable, which the creature born for this work pursues and draws together. Some think that what the bees have plucked from the tenderest of green and flowering things is turned into this quality by a kind of seasoning and arrangement — not without a sort of, so to speak, fermentation, by which diverse things coalesce into one.

De illis non satis constat, utrum sucum ex floribus ducant, qui protinus mel sit, an quae collegerunt, in hunc saporem mixtura quadam et proprietate spiritus sui mutent. Quibusdam enim placet non faciendi mellis scientiam esse illis, sed colligendi. Aiunt inveniri apud Indos mel in arundinum foliis, quod aut ros illius caeli aut ipsius arundinis umor dulcis et pinguior gignat. In nostris quoque herbis vim eandem, sed minus manifestam et notabilem poni, quam persequatur et contrahat animal huic rei genitum. Quidam existimant conditura et dispositione in hanc qualitatem verti, quae ex tenerrimis virentium florentiumque decerpserint, non sine quodam, ut ita dicam, fermento, quo in unum diversa coalescunt.

But not to be carried off to something other than the matter in hand — we too ought to imitate these bees, and whatever we have amassed from our varied reading we should keep apart (for things are better preserved when kept distinct), then, applying the care and faculty of our own talent, blend those various samplings into a single flavor, so that even if it is plain whence a thing was taken, it may yet appear to be other than that from which it was taken. This we see nature do in our own body without any work of ours:

Sed ne ad aliud quam de quo agitur abducar, nos quoque has apes debemus imitari et quaecumque ex diversa lectione congessimus, separare, melius enim distincta servantur, deinde adhibita ingenii nostri cura et facultate in unum saporem varia illa libamenta confundere, ut etiam si apparuerit, unde sumptum sit, aliud tamen esse quam unde sumptum est, appareat. Quod in corpore nostro videmus sine ulla opera nostra facere naturam:

the nourishment we have taken, so long as it keeps its own quality and floats undigested in the stomach, is a burden; but when it has been changed from what it was, then at last it passes into our strength and our blood. Let us render the same service to the things by which our minds are fed: let us not suffer whatever we have drunk in to remain intact, lest it be another’s.

alimenta, quae accepimus, quamdiu in sua qualitate perdurant et solida innatant stomacho, onera sunt; at cum ex eo, quod erant, mutata sunt, tum demum in vires et in sanguinem transeunt. Idem in his, quibus aluntur ingenia, praestemus, ut quaecumque hausimus, non patiantur integra esse, ne aliena sint.

Let us digest them; otherwise they will go into the memory, not into the mind. Let us assent to them faithfully and make them our own, so that some one thing may be made out of many — as a single number is made out of single units when one reckoning gathers up the lesser and discordant sums. Let our mind do this: let it hide all the things by which it was helped, and show only what it has made of them.

Concoquamus illa; alioqui in memoriam ibunt, non in ingenium. Adsentiamur illis fideliter et nostra faciamus, ut unum quiddam fiat ex multis, sicut unus numerus fit ex singulis, cum minores summas et dissidentes conputatio una comprendit. Hoc faciat animus noster: omnia, quibus est adiutus, abscondat, ipsum tantum ostendat, quod effecit.

Even if there appears in you a likeness of someone whom admiration has fixed more deeply in you, I would have you resemble him as a son does, not as a portrait does; a portrait is a dead thing. What then? Will it not be understood whose oratory you imitate, whose argument, whose maxims? I think that sometimes it cannot even be understood, if the likeness is a true one; for a true likeness stamps its own form upon everything it has drawn from each several model, so that they fall together into a unity.

Etiam si cuius in te comparebit similitudo, quem admiratio tibi altius fixerit, similem esse te volo quomodo filium, non quomodo imaginem; imago res mortua est. Quid ergo? Non intellegetur, cuius imiteris orationem, cuius argumentationem, cuius sententias? Puto aliquando ne intellegi quidem posse, si imago vera sit; haec enim omnibus, quae ex quo velut exemplari traxit, formam suam inpressit, ut in unitatem illa conpetant.

Do you not see of how many voices a chorus is made up? Yet one sound is rendered out of them all; one voice there is high, another low, another middle. Women are joined to men, flutes are set between; the voices of the individuals are hidden, the voices of all are heard.

Non vides, quam multorum vocibus chorus constet? Unus tamen ex omnibus redditur; aliqua illic acuta est, aliqua gravis, aliqua media. Accedunt viris feminae, interponuntur tibiae. Singulorum illic latent voces, omnium apparent.

I am speaking of the chorus the old philosophers knew; at our performances there are more singers than there once were spectators in the theaters. When a file of singers has filled every aisle, and the auditorium is ringed with trumpeters, and from the platform every kind of flute and organ has sounded together, out of these discords a harmony is made. Such would I have our mind be: many arts in it, many precepts, the examples of many ages, but all conspiring into one.

De choro dico, quem veteres philosophi noverant; in commissionibus nostris plus cantorum est quam in theatris olim spectatorum fuit. Cum omnes vias ordo canentium inplevit et cavea aeneatoribus cincta est et ex pulpito omne tibiarum genus organorumque consonuit, fit concentus ex dissonis. Talem animum nostrum esse volo; multae in illo artes, multa praecepta sint, multarum aetatum exempla, sed in unum conspirata.

How, you ask, can this be brought about? By unremitting attention; if we do nothing except at the prompting of reason. If you are willing to hear her, she will say to you: leave at once those things men run after. Leave riches — either a peril to hold or a burden. Leave the pleasures of body and mind; they soften and unman you. Leave ambition; it is a swollen thing, empty, windy, it has no limit, and is as anxious that none be seen ahead of it as that none be behind. It labors under envy, and a double envy at that; and you see how wretched a man is, if the one who is envied envies in his turn.

Quomodo, inquis, hoc effici poterit? Adsidua intentione; si nihil egerimus nisi ratione suadente. Hanc si audire volueris, dicet tibi: relinque ista iamdudum, ad quae discurritur. Relinque divitias, aut periculum possidendum aut onus. Relinque corporis atque animi voluptates; molliunt et enervant. Relinque ambitum; tumida res est, vana, ventosa, nullum habet terminum, tam sollicita est, ne quem ante se videat, quam ne quem post se. Laborat invidia et quidem duplici; vides autem, quam miser sit, si is cui invidetur et invidet.

Do you look at those houses of the powerful, those thresholds turbulent with the brawl of callers? They hold much insult for you to get in, and more once you are in. Pass by those steps of the rich and the vestibules poised on their great heaped-up foundations; there you will be standing not only on a precipice but on slippery ground. Turn yourself rather this way, toward wisdom, and seek her estate, which is at once the most tranquil and the most ample.

Intueris illas potentium domos, illa tumultuosa rixa salutantium limina? Multum habent contumeliarum, ut intres, plus, cum intraveris. Praeteri istos gradus divitum et magno adgestu suspensa vestibula; non in praerupto tantum istic stabis, sed in lubrico. Huc potius te ad sapientiam derige tranquillissimasque res eius et simul amplissimas pete.

Whatever things seem to tower in human affairs, however petty they are and prominent only by comparison with the lowliest, are nonetheless reached by hard and steep tracks. The road to the summit of high station is rough going; but if you have a mind to climb this peak, to which Fortune has bowed herself, you will indeed look down on all that is counted most exalted — yet you will come to the top along the level. Farewell.

Quaecumque videntur eminere in rebus humanis, quamvis pusilla sint et comparatione humillimorum extent, per difficiles tamen et arduos tramites adeuntur. Confragosa in fastigium dignitatis via est; at si conscendere hunc verticem libet, cui se fortuna summisit, omnia quidem sub te, quae pro excelsissimis habentur, aspicies, sed tamen venies ad summa per planum. Vale.

I had spared you, and whatever knotty matter still remained I had passed over, content as it were to give you a taste of what our school says: that virtue alone is potent enough to fill out the happy life. You bid me embrace every one of the syllogisms, whether ours or those devised to overturn ours. If I should choose to do this, it will be no letter but a book. This I protest, as I have so often: I take no pleasure in this kind of argument. I am ashamed to go down into the battle-line — undertaken on behalf of gods and men — armed with an awl.

Peperceram tibi et quicquid nodosi adhuc supererat, praeterieram, contentus quasi gustum tibi dare eorum, quae a nostris dicuntur, ut probetur virtus ad explendam beatam vitam sola satis efficax. Iubes me quicquid est interrogationum aut nostrarum aut ad traductionem nostram excogitatarum comprendere. Quod si facere voluero, non erit epistula, sed liber. Illud totiens testor, hoc me argumentorum genere non delectari. Pudet in aciem descendere pro dis hominibusque susceptam subula armatum.

He who is prudent is also temperate. He who is temperate is also constant. He who is constant is unperturbed. He who is unperturbed is without sorrow. He who is without sorrow is happy; therefore the prudent man is happy, and prudence is enough for the happy life.

Qui prudens est, et temperans est. Qui temperans est, et constans. Qui constans est, inperturbatus est. Qui inperturbatus est, sine tristitia est. Qui sine tristitia est, beatus est; ergo prudens beatus est et prudentia ad beatam vitam satis est.

To this chain certain of the Peripatetics reply in this way, interpreting ’unperturbed’ and ’constant’ and ’without sorrow’ so that a man is called unperturbed who is rarely and moderately perturbed, not who never is. Likewise they say a man is called ’without sorrow’ who is not prone to sorrow, nor frequent or excessive in this fault. For it is to deny human nature that anyone’s mind should be immune from sorrow: the wise man is not overcome by grief, but is touched by it nonetheless. And the rest in this fashion, to match the tenets of their sect.

Huic collectioni hoc modo Peripatetici quidam respondent, ut inperturbatum et constantem et sine tristitia sic interpretentur, tamquam inperturbatus dicatur, qui raro perturbatur et modice, non qui numquam. Item sine tristitia eum dici aiunt, qui non est obnoxius tristitiae nec frequens nimiusve in hoc vitio. Illud enim humanam naturam negare, alicuius animum inmunem esse tristitia. Sapientem non vinci maerore, ceterum tangi. Et cetera in hunc modum sectae suae respondentia.

She would fly over the topmost blades of the standing corn untouched, / nor bruise the tender ears in her running; / or carry her course suspended above the midst of the sea on the swelling wave, / nor wet her swift soles in the brine.

Illa vel intactae segetis per summa volaret Gramina nec cursu teneras laesisset aristas, Vel mare per medium fluctu suspensa tumenti Ferret iter celeres nec tingueret aequore plantas.

’So,’ he says, ’the wise man is called unperturbed in the way soft-seeded pomegranates are so called — not those that have no hardness of seeds in them, but a smaller hardness.’ That is false. For I do not understand a diminution of evils in the good man, but an exemption; there ought to be none, not small ones. For if there are any, they will grow, and meanwhile get in the way. As a larger and full suffusion blinds the eyes, so a moderate one disturbs them.

Sic, inquit, sapiens inperturbatus dicitur, quomodo apyrina dicuntur, non quibus nulla inest duritia granorum, sed quibus minor. Falsum est. Non enim deminutionem malorum in bono viro intellego, sed vacationem; nulla debent esse, non parva. Nam si ulla sunt, crescent et interim inpedient. Quomodo oculos maior et perfecta suffusio excaecat, sic modica turbat.

If you grant the wise man any passions, his reason will be unequal to them and will be swept off as by a torrent — especially since you grant him not one passion to wrestle with, but all of them. A crowd of passions, however ordinary, can do more than the violence of one great one could.

Si das aliquos adfectus sapienti, inpar illis erit ratio et velut torrente quodam auferetur, praesertim cum illi non unum adfectum des, cum quo conluctetur, sed omnis. Plus potest quamvis mediocrium turba quam posset unius magni violentia.

He has a desire for money, but a moderate one. He has ambition, but not inflamed. He has a temper, but appeasable. He has inconstancy, but less wandering and shifting. He has lust, but not insane. We should fare better with the man who had one entire vice than with the man who had all of them, lighter though they be.

Habet pecuniae cupiditatem, sed modicam. Habet ambitionem, sed non concitatam. Habet iracundiam, sed placabilem. Habet inconstantiam, sed minus vagam ac mobilem. Habet libidinem non insanam. Melius cum illo ageretur, qui unum vitium integrum haberet, quam cum eo, qui leviora quidem, sed omnia.

Besides, it makes no difference how great the passion is; however great it is, it knows not how to obey, it takes no counsel. As no animal obeys reason — not the wild, not the tame and gentle, for their nature is deaf to one who would persuade — so the passions do not follow, do not listen, however small they are. Tigers and lions never put off their ferocity; they sometimes lower it, and when you least expect it, the savagery once softened is roused again. Vices are never tamed in good faith.

Deinde nihil interest, quam magnus sit adfectus; quantumcumque est, parere nescit, consilium non accipit. Quemadmodum rationi nullum animal optemperat, non ferum, non domesticum et mite, natura enim illorum est surda suadenti; sic non secuntur, non audiunt adfectus, quantulicumque sunt. Tigres leonesque numquam feritatem exuunt, aliquando summittunt, et cum minime expectaveris, exasperatur torvitas mitigata. Numquam bona fide vitia mansuescunt.

Besides, if reason avails, the passions will not even begin; if they have begun against reason’s will, against her will they will persist. For it is easier to forbid their beginnings than to govern their onrush. And so that ’moderation’ of theirs is false and useless, to be put in the same place as if someone said one ought to go mad in moderation, to be sick in moderation.

Deinde, si ratio proficit, ne incipient quidem adfectus; si invita ratione coeperint, invita perseverabunt. Facilius est enim initia illorum prohibere quam impetum regere. Falsa est itaque ista mediocritas et inutilis, eodem loco habenda, quo si quis diceret modice insaniendum, modice aegrotandum.

Virtue alone holds the mean; the mind’s evils admit of no tempering. You will more easily take them away than rule them. Is there any doubt that the vices of the human mind, when grown inveterate and hard — those we call diseases — are immoderate, like avarice, like cruelty, like ungovernableness? Therefore the passions too are immoderate. For from these one passes to those.

Sola virtus habet, non recipiunt animi mala temperamentum. Facilius sustuleris illa quam rexeris. Numquid dubium est, quin vitia mentis humanae inveterata et dura, quae morbos vocamus, inmoderata sint, ut avaritia, ut crudelitas, ut inpotentia? Ergo inmoderati sunt et adfectus. Ab his enim ad illa transitur.

Besides, if you grant any right to sorrow, to fear, to desire, to the other crooked motions, they will not be in our power. Why? Because the things by which they are provoked are outside us. And so they will grow, in proportion as they have had greater or smaller causes by which to be stirred. Fear will be greater if a man has looked on more, or nearer, to terrify him; desire keener, the more the hope of a larger thing has called it forth.

Deinde si das aliquid iuris tristitiae, timori, cupiditati, ceteris motibus pravis, non erunt in nostra potestate. Quare? Quia extra nos sunt, quibus inritantur. Itaque crescent, prout magnas habuerint minoresve causas, quibus concitentur. Maior erit timor, si plus, quo exterreatur, aut propius aspexerit, acrior cupiditas, quo illam amplioris rei spes evocaverit.

If it is not in our power whether the passions exist, neither is it in our power how great they are; if you have let them begin, they will grow with their own causes and will be as great as they turn out to be. Add now that these things, however slight, advance into something greater. The destructive never keep a measure. However light the beginnings of diseases, they creep on, and sometimes the smallest access sinks a sick body.

Si in nostra potestate non est, an sint adfectus, ne illud quidem est, quanti sint; si ipsis permisisti incipere, cum causis suis crescent tantique erunt, quanti fient. Adice nunc, quod ista, quamvis exigua sint, in maius excedunt. Numquam perniciosa servant modum. Quamvis levia initia morborum serpunt et aegra corpora minima interdum mergit accessio.

But what madness is it, to believe that of things whose beginnings are placed outside our judgment, the ends are within our judgment? How am I strong enough to fear that which I was too weak to forbid, when it is easier to shut a thing out than to suppress it once admitted?

Illud vero cuius dementiae est, credere, quarum rerum extra nostrum arbitrium posita principia sunt, earum nostri esse arbitrii terminos? Quomodo ad id timendum satis valeo, ad quod prohibendum parum valui, cum facilius sit excludere quam admissa conprimere?

Some have drawn the distinction thus, saying: ’The temperate and prudent man is tranquil in the disposition and habit of his mind, but not in the outcome. For as to the habit of his mind, he is not perturbed, nor saddened, nor afraid, but many causes fall upon him from without that bring him perturbation.’

Quidam ita distinxerunt, ut dicerent: Temperans ac prudens positione quidem mentis et habitu tranquillus est, eventu non est. Nam, quantum ad habitum mentis suae, non perturbatum nec contristatur nec timet, sed multae extrinsecus causae incidunt, quae illi perturbationem adferant.

What they mean to say is of this kind: that he is indeed not irascible, yet sometimes grows angry; and not timid, yet sometimes fears; that is, he lacks the vice of fear but not the passion. But if this is admitted, by frequent use fear will pass into a vice, and anger once let into the mind will unravel that habit of a mind free from anger.

Tale est, quod volunt dicere: iracundum quidem illum non esse, irasci tamen aliquando; et timidum quidem non esse, timere tamen aliquando; id est, vitio timoris carere, adfectu non carere. Quod si recipitur, usu frequenti timor transibit in vitium, et ira in animum admissa habitum illum ira parentis animi retexet.

Moreover, if he does not despise the causes that come from without and fears something, then, when he must go bravely against weapons, fires, for his country, the laws, liberty, he will go out hesitantly and with a flinching mind. But this division of mind does not befall the wise man.

Praeterea si non contemnit venientes extrinsecus causas et aliquid timet, cum fortiter eundum erit adversus tela, ignes, pro patria, legibus, libertate, cunctanter exibit et animo recedente. Non cadit autem in sapientem haec diversitas mentis.

This, further, I judge worth observing: that we not confound two things which are to be proved separately. For it is established by itself that the one good is the honorable; and again by itself, that virtue is enough for the happy life. If the one good is the honorable, all concede that virtue suffices for living happily; conversely it will not be granted, if virtue alone makes a man happy, that the one good is the honorable.

Illud praeterea iudico observandum, ne duo, quae separatim probanda sunt, misceamus. Per se enim colligitur unum bonum esse, quod honestum, per se rursus, ad vitam beatam satis esse virtutem. Si unum bonum est, quod honestum, omnes concedunt ad beate vivendum sufficere virtutem; e contrario non remittetur, si beatum sola virtus facit, unum bonum esse, quod honestum est.

Xenocrates and Speusippus think a man can be made happy by virtue alone, yet that the honorable is not the one good. Epicurus too judges that he who has virtue is happy, but that virtue itself is not enough for the happy life, because it is the pleasure that comes from virtue that makes a man happy, not virtue itself. A foolish distinction. For the same man denies that virtue is ever without pleasure; so if pleasure is always joined to it and inseparable, then virtue alone is enough. For it has pleasure with it, without which it does not exist, even when it is alone.

Xenocrates et Speusippus putant beatum vel sola virtute fieri posse, non tamen unum bonum esse, quod honestum est. Epicurus quoque iudicat eum qui virtutem habeat, beatum esse, sed ipsam virtutem non satis esse ad beatam vitam, quia beatum efficiat voluptas, quae ex virtute est, non ipsa virtus. Inepta distinctio. Idem enim negat umquam virtutem esse sine voluptate; ita si ei iuncta semper est atque inseparabilis, et sola satis est. Habet enim secum voluptatem, sine qua non est, etiam cum sola est.

But it is absurd, what is said: that a man will indeed be happy by virtue alone, but will not be perfectly happy. How that can come about, I do not find. For the happy life has within itself a good that is perfect, unsurpassable. And if it is so, the life is perfectly happy. If the life of the gods has nothing greater or better, and the happy life is divine, then it has nothing to which it could be lifted higher.

Illud autem absurdum est, quod dicitur beatum quidem futurum vel sola virtute, non futurum autem perfecte beatum. Quod quemadmodum fieri possit, non reperio. Beata enim vita bonum in se perfectum habet, inexsuperabile. Quod si est, perfecte beata est. Si deorum vita nihil habet maius aut melius, beata autem vita divina est; nihil habet, in quod amplius possit attolli.

Besides, if the happy life is in need of nothing, every happy life is perfect, and the same life is both happy and most happy. Do you doubt that the happy life is the highest good? Then if it has the highest good, it is supremely happy. As the highest good admits of no addition (for what will there be above the highest?), so neither does the happy life, which does not exist without the highest good. But if you bring in someone ’more happy,’ you will bring in one much more happy too; you will make innumerable gradations of the highest good — whereas I understand the highest good to be that which has no step above itself.

Praeterea si beata vita nullius est indigens, omnis beata vita perfecta est eademque est et beata et beatissima. Numquid dubitas, quin beata vita summum bonum sit? Ergo si summum bonum habet, summe beata est. Quemadmodum summum bonum adiectionem non recipit (quid enim supra summum erit?), ita ne beata quidem vita, quae sine summo bono non est. Quod si aliquem magis beatum induxeris, induces et multo magis; innumerabilia discrimina summi boni facies, cum summum bonum intellegam, quod supra se gradum non habet.

If one man is less happy than another, it follows that he will covet the other’s more-happy life more than his own. But the happy man prefers nothing to his own. Either of these is incredible: that something remains to the happy man which he would rather be than what he is, or that he does not prefer that which is better than what he has. Certainly, the more prudent he is, the more he will stretch toward what is best and desire to attain it by every means. But how is he happy, who can even now desire — nay, who ought to?

Si est aliquis minus beatus quam alius, sequitur, ut hic alterius vitam beatioris magis concupiscet quam suam. Beatus autem nihil suae praefert. Utrumlibet ex his incredibile est: aut aliquid beato restare, quod esse quam quod est malit, aut id illum non malle, quod illo melius est. Utique enim quo prudentior est, hoc magis se ad id, quod est optimum, extendet et id omni modo consequi cupiet. Quomodo autem beatus est, qui cupere etiamnunc potest, immo qui debet?

I will say what this error springs from: they do not know that the happy life is one. Its quality, not its magnitude, sets it in the best state. And so long and short are on a level, the diffuse and the narrower, the life parceled into many places and parts and the life gathered into one. He who reckons it by number and measure and parts strips from it the very thing it has that is choice. And what is choice in the happy life? That it is full.

Dicam, quid sit, ex quo veniat hic error: nesciunt beatam vitam unam esse. In optimo illam statu ponit qualitas sua, non magnitudo. Itaque in aequo est longa et brevis, diffusa et angustior, in multa loca multasque partes distributa et in unum coacta. Qui illam numero aestimat et mensura et partibus, id illi, quod habet eximium, eripit. Quid autem est in beata vita eximium? Quod plena est.

The end of eating and drinking, I take it, is satiety. One eats more, another less; what does it matter? Each is now full. One drinks more, another less; what does it matter? Each is no longer thirsty. One has lived more years, another fewer; it makes no difference, if the many years made the one as happy as the few made the other. He whom you call less happy is not happy; the name cannot be diminished.

Finis, ut puto, edendi bibendique satietas est. Hic plus edit, ille minus; quid refert? Uterque iam satur est. Hic plus bibit, ille minus; quid refert? Uterque non sitit. Hic pluribus annis vixit, hic paucioribus; nihil interest, si tam illum multi anni beatum fecerunt quam hunc pauci. Ille, quem tu minus beatum vocas, non est beatus; non potest nomen inminui.

He who is brave is without fear. He who is without fear is without sorrow. He who is without sorrow is happy. This is the syllogism of our school. Against it they try to answer thus: that we are claiming as conceded a thing false and disputed — namely, that he who is brave is without fear. ’What then?’ he says, ’will the brave man not fear impending evils?’ That would be the mark of a madman and one out of his wits, not of a brave man. ’Nay,’ he says, ’he fears most moderately, but is not wholly outside fear.’

Qui fortis est, sine timore est. Qui sine timore est, sine tristitia est. Qui sine tristitia est, beatus est. Nostrorum haec interrogatio est. Adversus hanc sic respondere conantur: falsam nos rem et controversiosam pro confessa vindicare, eum, qui fortis est, sine timore esse. Quid ergo? inquit, fortis inminentia mala non timebit? Istuc dementis alienatique, non fortis est. Ille vero, inquit, moderatissime timet, sed in totum extra metum non est.

Those who say this fall back again into the same thing, that lesser vices stand in them in the place of virtues. For the man who does fear, only more rarely and less, is not free of vice but is plagued by a lighter one. ’But I think him mad, who does not dread impending evils.’ What you say is true, if they are evils; but if he knows that those things are not evils, and judges only baseness to be an evil, he will be bound to look on dangers securely and to despise as not fearful what others fear. Or, if it is the mark of the foolish and witless not to fear evils, then the more prudent a man is, the more he will fear.

Qui hoc dicunt, rursus in idem revolvuntur, ut illis virtutum loco sint minora vitia. Nam qui timet quidem, sed rarius et minus, non caret malitia, sed leviore vexatur. At enim dementem puto, qui mala imminentia non extimescit. Verum est, quod dicis, si mala sunt; sed si scit mala illa non esse et unam tantum turpitudinem malum iudicat, debebit secure pericula aspicere et aliis timenda contemnere. Aut si stulti et amentis est mala non timere, quo quis prudentior est, hoc timebit magis.

’As it seems to you,’ he says, ’the brave man will offer himself to dangers.’ Not at all; he will not fear them, but he will avoid them. Caution becomes him, fear does not. ’What then?’ he says, ’will he not fear death, chains, fires, the other weapons of fortune?’ No. For he knows they are not evils, but seem so. He counts all those things the bogeys of human life.

Ut vobis, inquit, videtur, praebebit se periculis fortis. Minime; non timebit illa, sed vitabit. Cautio illum decet, timor non decet. Quid ergo? inquit, mortem, vincla, ignes, alia tela fortunae non timebit? Non. Scit enim illa non esse mala, sed videri. Omnia ista humanae vitae formidines putat.

Describe captivity, the lash, chains, want, and the tearing of limbs, whether by disease or by violence, and whatever else you bring forward: he numbers them among frenzied terrors. Those are to be feared by the fearful. Or do you reckon that an evil, to which we must sometimes come of our own accord?

Describe captivitatem, verbera, catenas, egestatem et membrorum lacerationes vel per morbum vel per iniuriam et quicquid aliud adtuleris: inter lymphatos metus numerat. Ista timidis timenda sunt. An id existimas malum, ad quod aliquando nobis nostra sponte veniendum est?

You ask what an evil is? To yield to those things that are called evils, and to surrender to them one’s liberty, for which all things are to be endured. Liberty perishes, unless we despise the things that lay a yoke upon us. They would not be in doubt as to what befits a brave man, if they knew what bravery is. For it is not unconsidered rashness, nor love of dangers, nor an appetite for the fearful; it is the knowledge of distinguishing what is an evil and what is not. Bravery is most careful in its own protection, and likewise most patient of those things that wear a false show of evils.

Quaeris quid sit malum? Cedere iis, quae mala vocantur, et illis libertatem suam dedere, pro qua cuncta patienda sunt. Perit libertas, nisi illa contemnimus, quae nobis iugum inponunt. Non dubitarent, quid conveniret forti viro, si scirent, quid esset fortitudo. Non est enim inconsulta temeritas nec periculorum amor nec formidabilium adpetitio; scientia est distinguendi, quid sit malum et quid non sit. Diligentissima in tutela sui fortitudo est et eadem patientissima eorum, quibus falsa species malorum est.

What then? If the sword is held at the brave man’s neck, if part after part is pierced through, one upon another, if he has seen his own entrails in his own lap, if a pause is contrived so that he may feel the torments the more, and fresh blood is let down through the dried-out entrails, does he not fear? You will say he does not even feel pain? He does indeed feel pain. For no virtue strips a man of sensation. But he does not fear; unconquered, he looks down on his own pains from on high. You ask what mind is then in him? The mind of one who heartens a sick friend.

Quid ergo? Si ferrum intentatur cervicibus viri fortis, si pars subinde alia atque alia suffoditur, si viscera sua in sinu suo vidit, si ex intervallo, quo magis tormenta sentiat, reperitur et per adsiccata viscera recens demittitur sanguis, non timet? Istum tu dices nec dolere? Iste vero dolet. Sensum enim hominis nulla exuit virtus. Sed non timet; invictus ex alto dolores suos spectat. Quaeris quis tunc animus illi sit? Qui aegrum amicum adhortantibus.

’What is an evil, harms. What harms, makes worse. But pain and poverty do not make worse; therefore they are not evils.’ ’It is false,’ he says, ’what you propose; for it is not so, that if a thing harms it also makes worse. Storm and tempest harm the helmsman, yet do not make him worse.’

Quod malum est, nocet. Quod nocet, deteriorem facit. Dolor et paupertas deteriorem non faciunt; ergo mala non sunt. Falsum est, inquit, quod proponitis; non enim, si quid nocet, etiam deteriorem facit. Tempestas et procella nocet gubernatori, non tamen illum deteriorem facit.

Some of the Stoics answer against this thus: that the helmsman is made worse by storm and tempest, because he cannot accomplish what he proposed nor hold his course; that he is not made worse in his art, but in his work. To whom the Peripatetic: ’Then poverty too will make the wise man worse, and pain, and whatever else of the kind there is. For it will not snatch his virtue from him, but it will hinder its works.’

Quidam e Stoicis ita adversus hoc respondent: deteriorem fieri gubernaforem gubernatorem tempestate ac procella, quia non possit id, quod proposuit, efficere nec tenere cursum suum; deteriorem illum in arte sua non fieri, in opere fieri. Quibus Peripateticus ergo, inquit, et sapientem deteriorem faciet paupertas, dolor et quicquid aliud tale fuerit. Virtutem enim illi non eripiet, sed opera eius inpediet.

This would be rightly said, were the helmsman’s condition not unlike the wise man’s. For the wise man’s aim, in the conduct of life, is not, at all events, to accomplish what he attempts, but to do all things rightly. The helmsman’s aim is, at all events, to bring the ship into port. The arts are handmaids; they ought to render what they promise. Wisdom is mistress and governor; the arts serve life, wisdom commands it.

Hoc recte diceretur, nisi dissimilis esset gubernatoris condicio et sapientis. Huic enim propositum est in vita agenda non utique, quod temptat, efficere, sed omnia recte facere. Gubernatori propositum est utique navem in portum perducere. Artes ministrae sunt, praestare debent, quod promittunt. Sapientia domina reetrixque rectrixque est; artes serviunt vitae, sapientia imperat.

I judge that the answer must be otherwise: that neither is the helmsman’s art made worse by any storm, nor the very practice of the art. The helmsman did not promise you good fortune, but useful work and the knowledge of steering a ship. This appears the more, the more some chance force has stood against him. He who could say this — ’Neptune, never except upright’ — has satisfied his art; the storm hinders not the helmsman’s work, but its success.

Ego aliter respondendum iudico: nec artem gubernatoris deteriorem ulla tempestate fieri nec ipsam administrationem artis. Gubernator tibi non felicitatem promisit, sed utilem operam et navis regendae scientiam. Haec eo magis apparet, quo illi magis aliqua fortuita vis obstitit. Qui hoc potuit dicere Neptune, numquam hanc navem nisi rectam, arti satis fecit; tempestas non opus gubernatoris impedit, sed successum.

’What then?’ he says, ’does that thing not harm the helmsman which forbids him to hold the port, which makes his efforts vain, which either carries him back or detains and disarms him?’ It harms him not as a helmsman, but as a voyager; otherwise he is no helmsman at all. So far is it from hindering the helmsman’s art that it displays it; for in calm, as they say, anyone is a helmsman. Those things hurt the vessel, not its steerer in so far as he is the steerer.

Quid ergo? inquit, non nocet gubernatori ea res, quae illum tenere portum vetat, quae conatus eius inritos efficit, quae aut refert illum aut detinet et exarmat? Non tamquam gubernatori, sed tamquam naviganti nocet; alioqui gubernator ille non est. Gubernatoris artem adeo non inpedit, ut ostendat; tranquillo enim, ut aiunt, quilibet gubernator est. Navigio ista obsunt, non rectori eius, qua rector est.

The helmsman has two persons: one common with all who have boarded the same ship — he too is a passenger; the other proper to him — he is the helmsman. The storm harms him as a passenger, not as a helmsman.

Duas personas habet gubernator: alteram communem cum omnibus, qui eandem conscenderunt navem: ipse quoque vector est; alteram propriam: gubernator est. Tempestas tamquam vectori nocet, non tamquam gubernatori.

Besides, the helmsman’s art is another’s good: it pertains to those whom he carries, as the doctor’s to those he cures. The wise man’s good is a common good: it belongs both to those with whom he lives and is proper to himself. And so perhaps the helmsman is harmed, whose service, promised to others, is hindered by storm;

Deinde gubernatoris ars alienum bonum est: ad eos, quos vehit, pertinet, quomodo medici ad eos, quos curat. Commune bonum est sapientis: est et eorum, cum quibus vivit, et proprium ipsius. Itaque gubernatori fortasse noceatur, cuius ministerium aliis promissum tempestate inpeditur;

the wise man is not harmed by poverty, nor by pain, nor by the other storms of life. For not all his works are forbidden, but only those that pertain to others; he himself is always in action, and then greatest in effect, when fortune has set herself against him. For then he plies the very business of wisdom, which we said was both another’s good and his own.

sapienti non nocetur a paupertate, non a dolore, non ab aliis tempestatibus vitae. Non enim prohibentur opera eius omnia, sed tantum ad alios pertinentia; ipse semper in actu est, in effectu tunc maximus, cum illi fortuna se opposuit. Tunc enim ipsius sapientiae negotium agit, quam diximus et alienum bonum esse et suum.

Moreover, he is not even forbidden to profit others then, when some necessities press him. By reason of poverty he is forbidden to teach how the commonwealth should be handled, but he teaches this — how poverty should be handled. Through his whole life his work extends. So no fortune, no circumstance shuts out the acts of the wise man. For he is doing the very thing by which he is forbidden to do other things. He is fit for either lot: the ruler of goods, the conqueror of evils.

Praeterea ne aliis quidem tunc prodesse prohibetur, cum illum aliquae necessitates premunt. Propter paupertatem prohibetur docere, quemadmodum tractanda res publica sit, at illud docet, quemadmodum sit tractanda paupertas. Per totam vitam opus eius extenditur. Ita nulla fortuna, nulla res actus sapientis excludit. Id enim ipsum agit, quo alia agere prohibetur. Ad utrosque casus aptus est: bonorum rector est, malorum victor.

So, I say, he has trained himself to exhibit virtue as much in prosperity as in adversity, and to look not to its material but to itself. And so neither poverty nor pain nor anything else that turns the inexperienced aside and drives them headlong forbids him. Do you think him pressed by evils? He uses them.

Sic, inquam, se exercuit, ut virtutem tam in secundis quam in adversis exhiberet nec materiam eius, sed ipsam intueretur. Itaque nec paupertas illum nec dolor nec quicquid aliud imperitos avertit et praecipites agit, prohibet. Tu illum premi putas malis? Utitur.

Not from ivory alone did Phidias know how to make statues; he made them from bronze. Had you offered him marble, or a yet cheaper material, he would have made the best that could be made from it. So the wise man will unfold virtue, if he is allowed, in riches; if not, in poverty; if he can, in his fatherland; if not, in exile; if he can, as a general; if not, as a soldier; if he can, sound of body; if not, disabled. Whatever fortune he has received, he will make from it something memorable.

Non ex ebore tantum Phidias sciebat facere simulacra; faciebat ex aere. Si marmor illi, si adhuc viliorem materiam obtulisses, fecisset, quale ex illa fieri optimum posset. Sic sapiens virtutem, si licebit, in divitiis explicabit, si minus, in paupertate; si poterit, in patria, si minus, in exilio; si poterit, imperator, si minus, miles; si poterit, integer, si minus, debilis. Quamcumque fortunam acceperit, aliquid ex illa memorabile efficiet.

There are sure tamers of wild beasts, who subdue the most savage animals — such as are to be dreaded at the very sight — to endure man, and, not content with having shaken off their roughness, soften them even into companionship. The keeper puts his hand into lions’ mouths, the tiger is kissed by its own guard, the tiniest Ethiopian bids the elephant kneel upon its knees and walk along a rope. So the wise man is a craftsman at taming evils. Pain, want, disgrace, prison, exile — everywhere things of horror — when they have come to him, are tamed. Farewell.

Certi sunt domitores ferarum, qui saevissima animalia et ad occursum expavescenda hominem pati subigunt nec asperitatem excussisse contenti usque in contubernium mitigant. Leonibus magister manum insertat, osculatur tigrim suus custos, elephantum minimus Aethiops iubet subsidere in genua et ambulare per funem. Sic sapiens artifex est domandi mala. Dolor, egestas, ignominia, carcer, exilium ubique horrenda, cum ad hunc pervenere, mansueta sunt. Vale.

Lying in the very villa of Scipio Africanus, I write this to you, having done reverence to his shade and to the altar which I suspect to be the tomb of so great a man. That his soul has returned to heaven, whence it came, I persuade myself — not because he led great armies (for these the frenzied Cambyses had too, and used his frenzy with success), but for his outstanding moderation and devotion, which I judge more admirable in him when he left his country than when he defended it. Either Scipio had to be at Rome, or Rome in liberty.

In ipsa Scipionis Africani villa iacens haec tibi scribo adoratis manibus eius et ara, quam sepulchrum esse tanti viri suspicor. Animum quidem eius in caelum, ex quo erat, redisse persuadeo mihi, non quia magnos exercitus duxit, hos enim et Cambyses furiosus ac furore feliciter usus habuit, sed ob egregiam moderationem pietatemque, quam magis in illo admirabilem iudico, cum reliquit patriam, quam cum defendit; aut Scipio Romae esse debebat aut Roma in libertate.

’I wish,’ he said, ’to detract nothing from the laws, nothing from the institutions. Let the law be equal among all citizens. Make use of my benefit without me, my country. I was the cause of your liberty; I will be the proof of it too. I depart, if I have grown greater than is good for you.’

Nihil, inquit, volo derogare legibus, nihil institutis. Aequum inter omnes cives ius sit. Utere sine me beneficio meo, patria. Causa tibi libertatis fui, ero et argumentum; exeo, si plus quam tibi expedit, crevi.

Why should I not admire this greatness of soul, by which he withdrew into voluntary exile and relieved the state of his weight? Things had been brought to such a pass that either liberty must do Scipio an injury, or Scipio liberty. Neither was right. And so he gave place to the laws and betook himself to Liternum, meaning to charge the commonwealth with his own exile no less than with Hannibal’s.

Quidni ego admirer hanc magnitudinem animi, qua in exilium voluntarium secessit et civitatem exoneravit? Eo perducta res erat, ut aut libertas Scipioni aut Scipio libertati faceret iniuriam. Neutrum fas erat. Itaque locum dedit legibus et se Liternum recepit tam suum exilium rei publicae inputaturus quam Hannibalis.

I have seen the villa, built of squared stone; a wall thrown round the woods; towers too, raised on either side as bulwarks of the villa; a cistern set beneath the buildings and the greenery, large enough to serve the use even of an army; a little bath, cramped and dark after the old fashion — for to our ancestors a thing did not seem warm unless it was dark. A great pleasure, then, came over me as I contemplated the manners of Scipio and our own.

Vidi villam extructam lapide quadrato, murum circumdatur, silvae, turres quoque in propugnaculum villae utrimque subrectas, cisternam aedificiis ac viridibus subditam, quae sufficere in usum vel exercitus posset, balneolum angustum, tenebricosum ex consuetudine antiqua; non videbatur maioribus nostris caldum nisi obscurum. Magna ergo me voluptas subiit contemplantem mores Scipionis ac nostros.

In this corner that terror of Carthage — to whom Rome owes it that she was taken only once — washed a body wearied by country labors. For he exercised himself with work and, as was the custom of the men of old, dug the earth himself. Under this roof, so mean, he stood; this floor, so cheap, bore him up.

In hoc angulo ille Carthaginis horror, cui Roma debet, quod tantum semel capta est, abluebat corpus laboribus rusticis fessum. Exercebat enim opere se terramque, ut mos fuit priscis, ipse subigebat. Sub hoc ille tecto tam sordido stetit, hoc illum pavimentum tam vile sustinuit.

But now, who is there who could bear to bathe so? A man thinks himself poor and squalid unless the walls have gleamed with great and costly discs of stone, unless Alexandrian marbles are picked out with Numidian inlay, unless an elaborate facing, varied all over after the manner of a painting, frames them about, unless the vault is hidden under glass, unless Thasian stone — once a rare sight in some temple — has ringed our pools, into which we let down bodies drained by much sweating, unless silver taps have poured the water.

At nunc quis est, qui sic lavari sustineat? Pauper sibi videtur ac sordidus, nisi parietes magnis et pretiosis orbibus refugerunt, nisi Alexandrina marmora Numidicis crustis distincta sunt, nisi illis undique operosa et in picturae modum variata circumlitio praetexitur, nisi vitro absconditur camera, nisi Thasius lapis, quondam rarum in aliquo spectaculum templo, piscinas nostras circumdedit, in quas multa sudatione corpora exinanita demittimus, nisi aquam argentea epitonia fuderunt.

And so far I speak only of the plebeian pipes; what, when I have come to the baths of the freedmen? What a number of statues, what a number of columns supporting nothing, but set up for ornament, for the sake of the expense! What a mass of waters sliding with a roar down the steps! We have come to such a pitch of luxury that we will tread on nothing but jewels.

Et adhuc plebeias fistulas loquor; quid, cum ad balnea libertinorum pervenero? Quantum statuarum, quantum columnarum est nihil sustinentium, sed in ornamentum positarum inpensae causa! Quantum aquarum per gradus cum fragore labentium! Eo deliciarum pervenimus, ut nisi gemmas calcare nolimus.

In this bath of Scipio’s there are tiny chinks — slits rather than windows — cut in the stone wall, so as to admit light without weakening the defenses; but now they call those baths ’cockroach-holes’ if they are not so contrived as to take in the sun of the whole day through the widest windows, unless men are washed and tanned at once, unless from the basin they look out over fields and seas. And so the baths that drew crowds and wonder when they were dedicated are shunned and cast into the rank of the antique, as soon as luxury has devised something new to bury itself withal.

In hoc balneo Scipionis minimae sunt rimae magis quam fenestrae muro lapideo exsectae, ut sine iniuria munimenti lumen admitterent; at nunc blattaria vocant balnea, si qua non ita aptata sunt, ut totius diei solem fenestris amplissimis recipiant, nisi et lavantur simul et colorantur, nisi ex solio agros ac maria prospiciunt. Itaque quae concursum et admirationem habuerant, cum dedicarentur, devitantur et in antiquorum numerum reiciuntur, cum aliquid novi luxuria commenta est, quo ipsa se obrueret.

But of old the baths were few, and adorned with no finery. For why adorn a thing that cost a farthing and was found out for use, not for delight? The water was not poured in from above, nor did it run fresh and ever-flowing as from a hot spring, nor did they think it mattered into how clear a water they laid down their dirt.

At olim et pauca erant balnea nec ullo cultu exornata. Cur enim exornaretur res quadrantaria et in usum, non in oblectamentum reperta? Non suffundebatur aqua nec recens semper velut ex calido fonte currebat, nec referre credebant, in quam perlucida sordes deponerent.

But, good gods, what a pleasure it is to enter those dark baths, roofed with their common plaster, which you knew that Cato as aedile, or a Fabius Maximus, or one of the Cornelii had tempered with his own hand! For this office too the noblest of the aediles discharged: to enter the places that received the people, and to exact cleanliness and a useful and wholesome temperature — not this one, lately invented, like a conflagration, so hot indeed that a slave convicted of some crime ought to be bathed alive. Nothing now seems to me to differ between a bath being on fire and being hot.

Sed, di boni, quam iuvat illa balinea intrare obscura et gregali tectorio inducta, quae scires Catonem tibi aedilem aut Fabium Maximum aut ex Corneliis aliquem manu sua temperasse? Nam hoc quoque nobilissimi aediles fungebantur officio intrandi ea loca, quae populum receptabant, exigendique munditias et utilem ac salubrem temperaturam, non hanc, quae nuper inventa est similis incendio, adeo quidem, ut convictum in aliquo scelere servum vivum lavari oporteat. Nihil mihi videtur iam interesse, ardeat balineum an calcat.

How great a rusticity do some now condemn in Scipio, because he did not let the daylight into his hot-room through broad panes, because he was not stewed in a flood of light and did not wait to be cooked through in his bath! O luckless man! He knew not how to live. He did not bathe in filtered water, but often in turbid water and, when it rained harder, almost in mud. Nor did it much matter to him whether he bathed so; for he came to wash off sweat there, not perfume.

Quantae nunc aliqui rusticitatis damnant Scipionem, quod non in caldarium suum latis specularibus diem admiserat, quod non in multa luce decoquebatur et expectabat, ut in balneo concoqueret. O hominem calamitosum! Nesciit vivere. Non saccata aqua lavabatur, sed saepe turbida et, cum plueret vehementius, paene lutulenta. Nec multum eius intererat, an sic lavaretur; veniebat enim ut sudorem illic ablueret, non ut unguentum.

What voices of certain men do you suppose there will be? ’I do not envy Scipio; he truly lived in exile, who bathed like that.’ Nay, if you would know, he did not bathe daily. For, as those say who have handed down the ancient manners of the city, men washed their arms and legs daily — the parts, naturally, that had gathered dirt in work — but bathed all over only on market-days. Here someone will say: ’It is plain to me they were filthy fellows in those days. What do you think they smelt of?’ Of campaigning, of toil, of manhood. Since clean baths were found out, men are fouler.

Quas nunc quorundam voces futuras credis? Non invideo Scipioni; vere in exilio vixit, qui sic lavabatur. Immo, si scias, non cotidie lavabatur. Nam, ut aiunt, qui priscos mores urbis tradiderunt, brachia et crura cotidie abluebant, quae scilicet sordes opere collegerant, ceterum toti nundinis lavabantur. Hoc loco dicet aliquis: olim liquet mihi inmundissimos fuisse. Quid putas illos oluisse? Militiam, laborem, virum. Postquam munda balnea inventa sunt, spurciores sunt.

Buccillus reeks of pastilles.

Pastillos Buccillus olet.

If these things seem to you too gloomy, you will lay the blame on the villa, in which I learned from Aegialus — a most careful householder, for he is now the owner of this estate — that even an old plantation can be transplanted. This we old men must learn, none of whom but plants an olive-grove for another. I have seen that grove of his, three and four years old, bearing fruit one need not despise — or laying it down.

Haec si tibi nimium tristia videbuntur, villae inputabis, in qua didici ab Aegialo, diligentissime patre familiae, is enim nunc huius agri possessor est, quamvis vetus arbustum posse transferri. Hoc nobis senibus discere necessarium est, quorum nemo non olivetum alteri ponit. Quod vidi illud arborum trimum et quadrimum fastidiendi fructus aut deponere.

Slow it comes, to make shade for late descendants,

Tarda venit seris factura nepotibus umbram,

In spring is the sowing of beans: then you too, lucerne, the crumbling furrows receive, and millet comes for its yearly care.

Vere fabis satio est: tunc te quoque, medica, putres Accipiunt sulci, et milio venit annua cura.

I will return to the olive-grove, which I saw set out in two ways: the trunks of great trees, with the branches cut round and reduced to a single foot, he transplanted with their own root-knob, the roots lopped off, leaving only the head itself from which those branches had hung. This, dipped in dung, he let down into the trench; then he did not merely heap on the earth, but trod and pressed it down.

Ad olivetum revertar, quod vidi duobus modis depositum: magnarum arborum truncos circumcisis ramis et ad unum redactis pedem cum rapo suo transtulit amputatis radicibus, relicto tantum capite ipso, ex quo illae pependerant. Hoc fimo tinctum in scrobem demisit, deinde terram non adgessit tantum, sed calcavit et pressit.

He says nothing is more effective than this ’treading,’ as he calls it — it shuts out cold, that is, and wind. Besides, the tree is less shaken, and on this account it suffers the new-springing roots to come forth and lay hold of the soil — roots which, while still waxy and clinging by sufferance, even a light shaking would tear loose. But the root-knob of the tree, before he buries it, he scrapes. For from all the wood that has been laid bare, he says, new roots come out. Moreover the trunk should stand out above the ground no more than three or four feet. For at once it will be clothed from below, and no great part of it will be dry and parched, as in the old olive-groves.

Negat quicquam esse hac, ut ait, pisatione efficacius; videlicet frigus excludit et ventum. Minus praeterea movetur et ob hoc nascentes radices prodire patitur ac solum adprendere, quas necesse est cereas adhuc et precario haerentes levis quoque revellat agitatio. Rapum autem arboris, antequam obruat, radit. Ex omni enim materia, quae nudata est, ut ait, radices exeunt novae. Non plures autem super terram eminere debet truncus quam tres aut quattuor pedes. Statim enim ab imo vestietur nec magna pars quemadmodum in olivetis veteribus arida et retorrida erit.

The other way of setting was this: he laid down, in the same fashion, branches that were strong and not of hard bark, such as the branches of young trees commonly are. These rise a little more slowly, but, since they have come on as it were from a slip, they have nothing in them rough or sad.

Alter ponendi modus hic fuit: ramos fortes nec corticis duri, quales esse novellarum arborum solent, eodem genere deposuit. Hi paulo tardius surgunt, sed cum tamquam a planta processerint, nihil habent in se abhorridum aut triste.

This too I have seen — a vine, grown old, transplanted from its own plantation; its fine fibers also, if it can be done, are to be gathered up, and then the vine laid out more generously, so that it may strike root even from its body. And I have seen them set out not only in February, but even when March was over; they hold fast, and have embraced elms not their own.

Illud etiamnunc vidi, vitem ex arbusto suo annosam transferri; huius capillamenta quoque, si fieri potest, colligenda sunt, deinde liberalius sternenda vitis, ut etiam ex corpore radicescat. Et vidi non tantum mense Februario positas, sed etiam Martio exacto; tenent et conplexae sunt non suas ulmos.

But all those trees that are, so to speak, large-stemmed, he says are to be helped with cistern-water; and if that does good, we have rain in our own power. I do not mean to teach you more, lest, as Aegialus made me his adversary, so I make you mine. Farewell.

Omnes autem istas arbores, quae, ut ita dicam, grandiscapiae sunt, ait aqua adiuvandas cisternina, quae si prodest, habemus pluviam in nostra potestate. Plura te docere non cogito, ne quemadmodum Aegialus me sibi adversarium paravit, sic ego parem te mihi. Vale.

I suffered a shipwreck before I had gone aboard the ship. How it happened I do not add, lest you think this too is to be set among the Stoic paradoxes — not one of which is false, nor so marvelous as at first sight it seems, as I will prove to you when you wish, nay even if you do not wish. Meanwhile this journey has taught me how many superfluous things we have, and how easily we could lay them aside by our own judgment — things which, when necessity has at some time taken them away, we do not feel the loss of.

Naufragium, antequam navem adscenderem, feci. Quomodo acciderit, non adicio, ne et hoc putes inter Stoica paradoxa ponendum, quorum nullum esse falsum nec tam mirabile quam prima facie videtur, cum volueris, adprobabo, immo etiam si nolueris. Interim hoc me iter docuit, quam multa haberemus supervacua et quam facile iudicio possemus deponere, quae, si quando necessitas abstulit, non sentimus ablata.

With the fewest of slaves — as many as a single carriage could hold — and with no possessions but those contained on our own body, my Maximus and I are now spending a most happy two days. The mattress lies on the ground, I on the mattress. Of two cloaks, one is made the under-sheet, the other the cover.

Cum paucissimis servis, quos unum capere vehiculum potuit, sine ullis rebus, nisi quae corpore nostro continebantur, ego et Maximus meus biduum iam beatissimum agimus. Culcita in terra iacet, ego in culcita. Ex duabus paenulis altera stragulum, altera opertorium facta est.

From the luncheon nothing could be taken away; it was made ready in no more than an hour, never without dried figs, never without writing-tablets. The figs, if I have bread, serve as a relish; if I have none, as bread. They make me a New Year every day, which I render auspicious and happy by good thoughts and greatness of mind — a mind that is never greater than when it has set aside what is another’s and made for itself peace by fearing nothing, made for itself riches by desiring nothing.

De prandio nihil detrahi potuit; paratum fuit non magis hora, nusquam sine caricis, numquam sine pugillaribus. Illae, si panem habeo, pro pulmentario sunt, si non habeo, pro pane. Cotidie mihi annum novum faciunt, quem ego faustum et felicem reddo bonis cogitationibus et animi magnitudine, qui numquam maior est, quam ubi aliena seposuit et fecit sibi pacem nihil timendo, fecit sibi divitias nihil concupiscendo.

The carriage I was put into is a rustic one; the mules prove themselves alive by walking; the muleteer is unshod, and not on account of summer. I can scarcely prevail on myself to be willing that this carriage seem mine. Still there persists that perverse shame at what is right, and as often as we fall in with some more elegant retinue, I blush in spite of myself — which is proof that those things I approve and praise do not yet have a fixed and immovable seat. He who blushes at a shabby carriage will glory in a costly one.

Vehiculum, in quod inpositus sum, rusticum est; nudae vivere se ambulando testantur; mulio excalceatus, non propter aestatem. Vix a me obtineo, ut hoc vehiculum velim videri meum. Durat adhuc perversa recti verecundia, et quotiens in aliquem comitatum lautiorem incidimus, invitus erubesco, quod argumentum est ista, quae probo, quae laudo, nondum habere certam sedem et inmobilem. Qui sordido vehiculo erubescit, pretioso gloriabitur.

I have made little progress as yet. I do not yet dare to carry my frugality openly. Even now I care about the opinions of travelers. Against the opinions of the whole human race I ought to have raised my voice: ’You are mad, you go astray, you stand agape at superfluities, you value no one at his own worth. When it comes to property, you most diligent reckoners cast up the account of each man — those to whom you mean to lend either money or favors (for these too you now enter as outlay):

Parum adhuc profeci. Nondum audeo frugalitatem palam ferre. Etiamnunc curo opiniones viatorum. Contra totius generis humani opiniones mittenda vox erat: Insanitis, erratis, stupetis ad supervacua, neminem aestimatis suo. Cum ad patrimonium ventum est, diligentissimi conputatores sic rationem ponitis singulorum, quibus aut pecuniam credituri estis aut beneficia, nam haec quoque iam expensa fertis:

he owns widely, but owes much; he has a handsome house, but bought with another’s coin; no one will quickly produce a more showy household of slaves, but he does not answer to his debts; if he pays his creditors, nothing will be left to him.’ The same you ought to do in the rest too: search out how much of his own each man has.

late possidet, sed multum debet; habet domum formosam, sed alienis nummis paratam: familiam nemo cito speciosiorem producet, sed nominibus non respondet; si creditoribus solverit, nihil illi supererit. Idem in reliquis quoque facere debebitis, excutere quantum proprii quisque habeat.

Do you think him rich, because golden plate follows him even on the road, because he plows in every province, because a great ledger is rolled out, because he owns as much suburban land as he would be envied for owning in the deserts of Apulia? When you have said all, he is poor. Why? Because he owes. How much? you ask. Everything. Unless perhaps you judge it matters whether a man has borrowed from a man or from fortune.

Divitem illum putas, quia aurea supellex etiam in via sequitur, quia in omnibus provinciis arat, quia magnus kalendari liber volvitur, quia tantum suburbani agri possidet, quantum invidiose in desertis Apuliae possideret. Cum omnia dixeris, pauper est. Quare? Quia debet. Quantum? inquis. Omnia. Nisi forte iudicas interesse, utrum aliquis ab homine an a fortuna mutuum sumpserit.

Caparisoned with purple and with broidered rugs, the swift-footed steeds; / golden collars hang let down upon their breasts; / covered with gold, they champ the tawny gold beneath their teeth.

Instratos ostro alipedes pictisque tapetis, Aurea pectoribus demissa monilia pendent, Tecti auro fulvom mandunt sub dentibus aurum.

Marcus Cato the Censor — whose birth was as much to the public good as Scipio’s, for the one waged war with our enemies, the other with our morals — rode a gelding, and that with saddle-bags laid on, so as to carry his necessaries with him. O how I should wish that now some one of these dandies might meet him on the road, with his runners and Numidians and a great cloud of dust driven before him! This man, no doubt, would seem more refined and better-attended than Marcus Cato — this man who, amid those dainty appointments, is at this very moment in doubt whether to hire himself out to the sword or to the knife.

M. Cato Censorius, quem tam e re publica fuit nasci quam Scipionem, alter enim cum hostibus nostris bellum, alter cum moribus gessit, cantherio vehebatur et hippoperis quidem inpositis, ut secum utilia portaret. O quam cuperem illi nunc occurrere aliquem ex his trossulis in via cursores et Numidas et multum ante se pulveris agentem! Hic sine dubio cultior comitatiorque quam M. Cato videretur, hic, qui inter illos apparatus delicatos cum maxime dubitat, utrum se ad gladium locet an ad cultrum.

O what a glory of the age it was, that a triumphant general, a censor, and — what is above all these — a Cato was content with a single nag, and not even a whole one! For parts of his baggage, hanging down on either side, took up its room. Would you not, then, prefer that one horse, rubbed down by Cato’s own hand, to all the sleek ponies and Asturian palfreys and amblers?

O quantum erat saeculi decus, imperatorem triumphalem, censorium, quod super omnia haec est, Catonem uno caballo esse contentum et ne toto quidem! Partem enim sarcinae ab utroque latere dependentes occupabant. Ita non omnibus obesis mannis et asturconibus et tolutariis praeferres unicum illum equum ab ipso Catone defrictum?

I see there will be no end in this theme, except the one I make for myself. So here I will fall silent, as to these things which he no doubt divined would be such as they now are, who first called them ’impediments.’ Now I wish to render you a very few more of our school’s syllogisms, bearing on virtue, which we contend is enough for the happy life.

Video non futurum finem in ista materia ullum, nisi quem ipse mihi fecero. Hic itaque conticescam, quantum ad ista, quae sine dubio talia divinavit futura, qualia nunc sunt, qui primus appellavit inpedimenta. Nunc volo paucissimas adhuc interrogationes nostrorum tibi reddere ad virtutem pertinentes, quam satisfacere vitae beatae contendimus.

What is good makes men good. For in the art of music too, what is good makes a musician. But chance things do not make a man good. Therefore they are not goods. Against this the Peripatetics answer thus, that what we propose first is false. ’From that which is good,’ they say, ’men are not necessarily made good. In music there is something good — like a flute or a string or some instrument fitted to the uses of singing. Yet none of these makes a musician.’

Quod bonum est, bonos facit. Nam et in arte musica quod bonum est, facit musicum. Fortuita bonum non faciunt. Ergo non sunt bona. Adversus hoc sic respondent Peripatetici, ut quod primum proponimus, falsum esse dicant. Ab eo, inquiunt, quod est bonum, non utique fiunt boni. In musica est aliquid bonum tamquam tibia aut chorda aut organum aliquod aptatum ad usus canendi. Nihil tamen horum facit musicum.

Here we shall answer: You do not understand in what sense we set down what is good in music. For we do not mean that which equips the musician, but that which makes him; you come at the furniture of the art, not at the art. But if there is anything good in the very art of music, that will assuredly make a man a musician.

Hic respondebimus: Non intellegitis, quomodo posuerimus quod bonum est in musica. Non enim id dicimus, quod instruit musicum, sed quod facit; tu ad supellectilem artis, non ad artem venis. Si quid autem in ipsa arte musica bonum est, id utique musicum faciet.

I wish even now to make this plainer. The good in the art of music is spoken of in two ways: one by which the musician’s performance is helped, the other by which the art is helped. To the performance belong the instruments — flutes and organs and strings; to the art itself they do not belong. For a man is an artist even without these; he may perhaps not be able to use his art. This is not equally twofold in man; for the good of the man and the good of his life are the same.

Etiamnunc facere istuc planius volo. Bonum in arte musica duobus modis dicitur, alterum, quo effectus musici adiuvatur, alterum, quo ars. Ad effectum pertinent instrumenta, tibiae et organa et chordae, ad artem ipsam non pertinent. Est enim artifex etiam sine istis; uti forsitan non potest arte. Hoc non est aeque duplex in homine; idem enim est bonum et hominis et vitae.

What can fall to the lot of the most contemptible and basest of men is not good. But wealth falls to the lot of the pander and the trainer of gladiators. Therefore it is not good. ’It is false,’ they say, ’what you propose. For in grammar too, and in the art of healing or of steering, we see that goods fall to the lot of the humblest sort.’

Quod contemptissimo cuique contingere ac turpissimo potest, bonum non est. Opes autem et lenoni et lanistae contingunt. Ergo non sunt bona. Falsum est, inquiunt, quod proponitis. Nam et in grammatice et in arte medendi aut gubernandi videmus bona humillimis quibusque contingere.

But those arts do not profess greatness of soul; they do not rise on high, nor do they disdain the gifts of chance. Virtue lifts a man up and sets him above what mortals hold dear; she neither covets too much what is called good, nor dreads what is called evil. Chelidon, one of Cleopatra’s catamites, possessed a great fortune. Lately Natalis — a man of a tongue as shameless as it was unclean, in whose mouth women were cleansed — was both the heir of many and had many heirs. What then? Did money make him unclean, or did he befoul the money? Money that falls upon certain men as a denarius falls into a sewer.

Sed istae artes non sunt magnitudinem animi professae, non consurgunt in altum nec fortuita fastidiunt. Virtus extollit hominem et super cara mortalibus conlocat; nec ea, quae bona, nec ea, quae mala vocantur, aut cupit nimis aut expavescit. Chelidon, unus ex Cleopatrae mollibus, patrimonium grande possedit. Nuper Natalis tam inprobae linguae quam inpurae, in cuius ore feminae purgabantur, et multorum heres fuit et multos habuit heredes. Quid ergo? Utrum illum pecunia inpurum effecit an ipse pecuniam inspurcavit? Quae sic in quosdam homines quomodo denarius in cloacam cadit.

Virtue stands above these things. She is rated by her own coin. She judges nothing good of those things that come running in by chance. Medicine and navigation do not forbid themselves and their followers an admiration of such things. A man who is not good may nonetheless be a doctor, may be a helmsman, may be a grammarian — just as well, by Hercules, as a cook. Him to whom it falls to have a thing that is not had by anyone and everyone, you would not call an anyone-and-everyone; each man is such as the things he has.

Virtus super ista consistit. Suo aere censetur. Nihil ex istis quolibet incurrentibus bonum iudicat. Medicina et gubernatio non interficit sibi ac suis admiratione talium rerum Qui non est vir bonus, potest nihilominus medicus esse, potest gubernator, potest grammaticus tam mehercules quam cocus. Cui contingit habere rem non quamlibet, hunc non quemlibet dixeris; qualia quisque habet, talis est.

A money-chest is worth as much as it holds; nay, what it holds comes in as an addition to it. Who sets any price on a full purse except that which the sum of money stored in it makes? The same befalls the masters of great fortunes: they are the additions and appendages of their fortunes. Why then is the wise man great? Because he has a great soul. True therefore it is, that what falls to the lot of the most contemptible is not good.

Fiscus tanti est, quantum habet; immo in accessionem eius venit, quod habet. Quis pleno sacculo ullum pretium ponit nisi quod pecuniae in eo conditae numerus effecit? Idem evenit magnorum dominis patrimoniorum: accessiones illorum et appendices sunt. Quare ergo sapiens magnus est? Quia magnum animum habet. Verum est ergo quod contemptissimo cuique contingit, bonum non esse.

And so I will never call freedom from pain a good; the cicada has it, the flea has it. I will not even call rest, and exemption from trouble, a good; what is more at leisure than a worm? Do you ask what it is that makes a wise man? That which makes a god. You must grant him something divine, heavenly, magnificent. The good does not fall upon all, nor does it suffer any chance possessor.

Itaque indolentiam numquam bonum dicam; habet illam cicada, habet pulex. Ne quietem quidem et molestia vacare bonum dicam; quid est otiosius verme? Quaeris, quae res sapientem faciat? Quae deum. Des oportet illi divinum aliquid, caeleste, magnificum. Non in omnes bonum cadit nec quemlibet possessorem patitur.

And what each region bears, and what each refuses: / here grain, there grapes come more happily; / elsewhere the fruits of trees, and unbidden the grasses grow green. / Do you not see how Tmolus sends its saffron scents, / India its ivory, the soft Sabaeans their frankincense? / But the naked Chalybes their iron.

Et quid quaeque ferat regio et quid quaeque recuset: Hic segetes, illic veniunt felicius uvae. Arborei fetus alibi atque iniussa virescunt Gramina. Nonne vides, croceos ut Tmolus odores, India mittat ebur, molles sua tura Sabaei? At Chalybes nudi ferrum.

These things have been parceled out among regions, so that there should be a necessary commerce among mortals, each in turn seeking something from another. That highest good has its own seat too. It is not born where ivory is, nor where iron is. Do you ask what is the place of the highest good? The soul. Unless this is pure and holy, it does not contain a god.

Ista in regiones discripta sunt, ut necessarium mortalibus esset inter ipsos commercium, si invicem alius aliquid ab alio peteret. Summum illud bonum habet et ipsum suam sedem. Non nascitur, ubi ebur, nec ubi ferrum. Quis sit summi boni locus quaeris? Animus. Hic nisi purus ac sanctus est, deum non capit.

Good does not come from evil. But riches come from avarice. Therefore riches are not a good. ’It is not true,’ he says, ’that good is not born from evil. For money is born from sacrilege and theft. And so sacrilege and theft are indeed an evil — but for this reason, that they do more evils than goods. For they give gain, but with fear, anxiety, torments of mind and body.’

Bonum ex malo non fit. Divitiae fiunt autem ex avaritia. Divitiae ergo non sunt bonum. Non est, inquit, verum, bonum ex malo non nasci. Ex sacrilegio enim et furto pecunia nascitur. Itaque malum quidem est sacrilegio enim et furtum, sed ideo, quia plura mala facit quam bona. Dat enim lucrum, sed cum metu, sollicitudine, tormentis et animi et corporis.

Whoever says this must admit that, just as sacrilege is an evil because it does many evils, so it is also in some part a good, because it does some good. What more monstrous than this could come about? And yet we have utterly persuaded ourselves that sacrilege, theft, adultery are to be reckoned among goods. How many do not blush at theft, how many glory in adultery! For petty sacrileges are punished, great ones are carried in triumphs.

Quisquis hoc dicit, necesse est recipiat sacrilegium, sicut malum sit, quia multa mala facit, ita bonum quoque ex aliqua parte esse, quia aliquid boni facit. Quo quid fieri portcntuosius portentuosius potest? Quamquam sacrilegium, furtum, adulterium inter bona haberi prorsus persuasimus. Quam multi furto non erubescunt, quam multi adulterio gloriantur! Nam sacrilegia minuta puniuntur, magna in triumpilis triumphis feruntur.

Add now that sacrilege, if it is altogether in some part good, will even be honorable and will be called a rightly-done deed: for it is our own action. Which the thought of no mortal admits. Therefore goods cannot be born from evil. For if, as you say, sacrilege is an evil for this one reason, that it brings much of evil, then if you remit its punishments, if you promise it security, it will be wholly good. And yet the greatest punishment of crimes lies in the crimes themselves.

Adice nunc, quod sacrilegium, si omnino ex aliqua parte bonum est, etiam honestum erit et recte factum vocabitur: nostra enim actio est. Quod nullius mortalium cogitatio recipit. Ergo bona nasci ex malo non possunt. Nam si, ut dicitis, ob hoc unum sacrilegium malum est, quia multum mali adfert, si remiseris illi supplicia, si securitatem spoponderis, ex toto bonum erit. Atqui maximum scelerum supplicium in ipsis est.

You are mistaken, I say, if you defer those punishments to the executioner or the prison; they are punished at once, when they are done, nay, while they are being done. And so good is not born from evil, no more than a fig from an olive. Things answer to the seed from which they are born; goods cannot degenerate. As the honorable is not born from the base, so neither is good from evil. For the honorable and the good are the same.

Erras, inquam, si illa ad carnificem aut carcerem differs; statim puniuntur, cum facta sunt, immo dum fiunt. Non nascitur itaque ex malo bonum, non magis quam ficus ex olea. Ad semen nata respondent, bona degenerare non possunt. Quemadmodum ex turpi honestum non nascitur, ita ne ex malo quidem bonum. Nam idem est honestum et bonum.

Certain of our school answer against this thus: ’Let us suppose money is a good, taken from wherever; still money is not therefore from sacrilege, even if it is taken from sacrilege. Understand it thus: in the same urn there are both gold and a viper. If you take the gold out of the urn, it is not because the viper is there too; the urn, I say, does not give me gold because it has a viper, but gives gold while it also has a viper. In the same way, gain comes from sacrilege not because sacrilege is base and criminal, but because it has gain too. As in that urn the viper is the evil, not the gold that lies with the viper, so in sacrilege the crime is the evil, not the gain.’

Quidam ex nostris adversus hoc sic respondent: Putemus pecuniam bonum esse undecumque sumptam; non tamen ideo ex sacrilegio pecunia est, etiam si ex sacrilegio sumitur. Hoc sic intellege: in eadem urna et aurum est et vipera. Si aurum ex urna sustuleris, quia illic et vipera est, non ideo, inquam, mihi urna aurum dat, quia viperam habet, sed aurum dat, cum et viperam habeat. Eodem modo ex sacrilegio lucrum fit, non quia turpe et sceleratum est sacrilegium, sed quia et lucrum habet. Quemadmodum in illa urna vipera malum est, non aurum, quod cum vipera iacet, sic in sacrilegio malum est scelus, non lucrum.

From these I dissent; for the condition of the two things is most unlike. There I can take up the gold without the viper; here I cannot make the gain without the sacrilege. That gain is not set beside the crime, but mixed into it.

A quibus dissentio: dissimillima enim utriusque rei condicio est. Illic aurum possum sine vipera tollere, hic lucrum sine sacrilegio facere non possum. Lucrum istud non est adpositum sceleri, sed inmixtum.

What, while we wish to attain it, we fall into many evils, is not good. But while we wish to attain riches, we fall into many evils; therefore riches are not a good. ’Your proposition,’ he says, ’has two meanings, one: that while we wish to attain riches, we fall into many evils. But we fall into many evils also while we wish to attain virtue. A man, while he sails for the sake of study, suffers shipwreck; another is taken captive.’

Quod dum consequi volumus, in multa mala incidimus, id bonum non est. Dum divitias autem consequi volumus, in multa mala incidimus; ergo divitiae bonum non sunt. Duas, inquit, significationes habet propositio vestra, unam: dum divitias consequi volumus, in multa nos mala incidere. In multa autem mala incidimus et dum virtutem consequi volumus. Aliquis dum navigat studii causa, naufragium fecit, aliquis captus est.

The other meaning is this: that through which we fall into evils is not good. To this proposition it will not follow that we fall into evils through riches or through pleasures; or if through riches we fall into many evils, then riches are not merely not a good, but an evil — whereas you say only that they are not a good. ’Besides,’ he says, ’you grant that riches have some use. You number them among the advantages; but by the same reasoning they will not even be an advantage. For through them many disadvantages befall us.’

Altera significatio talis est: per quod in mala incidimus, bonum non est. Huic propositioni non erit consequens per divitias nos aut per voluptates in mala incidere; aut si per divitias in multa mala incidimus, non tantum bonum non sunt divitiae, sed malum sunt; vos autem illas dicitis tantum bonum non esse. Praeterea, inquit, conceditis divitias habere aliquid usus. Inter commoda illas numeratis; atqui eadem ratione ne commodum quidem erunt. Per illas enim multa nobis incommoda eveniunt.

To these some answer thus: ’You are mistaken who charge disadvantages to riches. They harm no one; either each man’s own folly harms him, or another’s wickedness — just as a sword kills no one; it is the weapon of the killer. Riches do not therefore harm you, if on account of riches harm is done to you.’

His quidam hoc respondent: Erratis, qui incommoda divitiis inputatis. Illae neminem laedunt; aut sua nocet cuique stultitia aut aliena nequitia, sic quemadmodum gladius neminem occidit; occidentis telum est. Non ideo divitiae tibi nocent, si propter divitias tibi nocetur.

Posidonius, as I judge, does better, who says that riches are a cause of evils not because they themselves do anything, but because they goad men who will do something. For one cause is efficient, which must straightway harm; another is antecedent. Riches have this antecedent cause: they puff up the mind, they breed pride, they draw on envy, and they so estrange the mind that the mere repute of money delights us even when it is going to harm us.

Posidonius, ut ego existimo, melius, qui ait divitias esse causam malorum, non quia ipsae faciunt aliquid, sed quia facturos inritant. Alia est enim causa e(iiciens, quae protinus necesse est noceat, alia praecedens. Hanc praecedentem causam divitiae habent; inflant animos, superbiam pariunt, invidiam contrahunt et usque eo mentem alienant, ut fama pecuniae nos etiam nocitura delectet.

But all goods ought to be free from fault; they are pure, they do not corrupt the mind, do not disquiet it. They lift it up indeed and expand it, but without swelling. The things that are good make confidence, riches make audacity. The things that are good give greatness of soul, riches give insolence. And insolence is nothing but a false show of greatness.

Bona autem omnia carere culpa decet; pura sunt, non corrumpunt animos, non sollicitant. Extollunt quidem et dilatant, sed sine tumore. Quae bona sunt fiduciam faciunt, divitiae audaciam. Quae bona sunt magnitudinem animi dant, divitiae insolentiam. Nihil autem alii est insolentia quam species magnitudinis falsa.

’In that way,’ he says, ’riches are even an evil, not merely not a good.’ They would be an evil if they did harm of themselves, if, as I said, they had an efficient cause; but as it is they have an antecedent cause, and one not merely goading the mind but drawing it on. For they pour out a show of good that is like the truth and credible to most men.

Isto modo, inquit, etiam malum sunt divitia non tantum bonum non sunt. Essent malum, ipsae nocerent, si, ut dixi, haberent efficientem causam; nunc praecedentem habent et quidem non inritantem tantum animos, sed adtrahentem. Specie enim boni offundunt veri similem ac plerisque credibilem.

Virtue too has an antecedent cause: it draws on envy, for many are envied on account of wisdom, many on account of justice. But it does not have this cause of itself, nor a likely one. On the contrary, that more truthful show is set before men’s minds by virtue, which calls them into love and admiration.

Habet virtus quoque praecedentem causam adducit invidiam, multis enim propter sapientiar sapientiam multis propter iustitiam invidetur. Sed nec ex se hanc causam habet nec veri similem. Contra enii enim veri similior illa species hominum animis obicitur virtute, quae illos in amorem et admirationem vocet.

Posidonius says the question should be put thus: things which give the soul neither greatness nor confidence nor security are not goods. But riches and good health and the like do none of these; therefore they are not goods. This question he presses even further in this way: things which give the soul neither greatness nor confidence nor security, but on the contrary create insolence, swelling, arrogance, are evils. But by chance things we are driven into these; therefore they are not goods.

Posidonius sic interrogandum ait: quae neque magnitudinem animo dant nec fiduciam nec securitatem, non sunt bona. Divitiae autem et bona valetudo et similia his nihil horum faciunt; ergo non sunt bona. Hanc interrogationem magis etiam nunc hoc modo intendit: quae neque magnitudinem animo dant nec fiduciam nec securitatem, contra autem insolentiam, tumorem, arrogantiam creant, mala sunt. A fortuitis autem in haec inpellimur ergo non sunt bona.

’By this reasoning,’ he says, ’they will not even be advantages.’ The condition of advantages is one thing, of goods another; an advantage is that which has more of use than of trouble. A good ought to be unmixed and on every side harmless. That is not good which profits more, but which profits only.

Hac, inquit, ratione ne commoda quidem ista erunt. Alia est commodorum condicio, alia bonorum; commodum est, quod plus usus habet quam molestiae. Bonum sincerum esse debet et ab omni parte innoxium. Non est id bonum, quod plus prodest, sed quod tantum prodest.

Besides, an advantage pertains both to animals and to imperfect men and to fools. And so a disadvantage may be mixed with it, but it is called an advantage as reckoned by its greater part; the good pertains to the wise man alone; it must be inviolate.

Praeterea commodum et ad animalia pertinet et ad inperfectos homines et ad stultos. Itaque potest ei esse incommodum mixtum, sed commodum dicitur a maiore sui parte aestimatum; bonum ad unum sapientem pertinet; inviolatum esse oportet.

Be of good cheer; one knot remains for you, but a Herculean one: ’good does not come from evils. But riches are made out of many cases of poverty; therefore riches are not a good.’ This question our school does not recognize; the Peripatetics both invent it and solve it. But Posidonius says that this sophism, bandied through all the schools of the dialecticians, was refuted by Antipater thus:

Bonum animum habere; unus tibi nodus, sed Herculaneus restat: ex malis bonum non fit. Ex multis paupertatibus divitiae fiunt; ergo divitiae bonum non sunt. Hanc interrogationem nostri non agnoscunt, Peripatetici et fingunt illam et solvunt. Ait autem Posidonius hoc sophisma, per omnes dialecticorum scholas iactatum, sic ab Antipatro refelli:

poverty is spoken of not by possession but by subtraction — or, as the ancients said, by deprivation (the Greeks say kata steresin, ’by privation’). It states not what a man has, but what he does not have. And so out of many empty things nothing can be filled; riches are made by many somethings, not by many wants. ’You understand poverty,’ he says, ’otherwise than you should. For poverty is not that which possesses few things, but that which does not possess many; so it is named not from what it has, but from what is lacking to it.’

paupertas non per possessionem dicitur, sed per detractionem vel, ut antiqui dixerunt, orbationem. Graeci κατὰ στέρησιν dicunt. Non quod habeat dicit, sed quod non habeat. Itaque ex multis inanibus nihil inpleri potest; divitias multae res faciunt, non multae inopiae. Aliter, inquit, quam debes, paupertatem intellegis. Paupertas enim est non quae pauca possidet, sed quae multa non possidet; ita non ab eo dicitur, quod habet, sed ab eo, quod ei deest.

I could express what I mean more easily if there were a Latin word for anyparxia, ’non-existence.’ This Antipater assigns to poverty; I, for my part, do not see what poverty is other than the possession of little. About that we shall see, if ever there is much leisure, what is the substance of riches, what of poverty; but then too we shall consider whether it is not better to soothe poverty and take the haughtiness from riches than to wrangle about words, as though judgment had already been given on the things themselves.

Facilius, quod volo, exprimerem, si Latinum verbum esset, quo ἀνυπαρξία, significatum. Hanc paupertati Antipater adsignat; ego non video, quid aliud sit paupertas quam parvi possessio. De isto videbimus, si quando valde vacabit, quae sit divitiarum, quae paupertatis substantia; sed tunc quoque considerabimus, numquid satius sit paupertatem permulcere, divitiis demere supercilium quam litigare de verbis, quasi iam de rebus iudicatum sit.

Let us suppose ourselves called to an assembly; a law is brought in for the abolition of riches. Are we to advise or dissuade by these syllogisms? Are we by these to bring it about that the Roman people should long for and praise poverty, the foundation and cause of its empire, but fear its own riches — to reflect that it found these among the conquered, that from this source ambition and bribery and tumults burst into the most holy and most temperate city, that the spoils of the nations are flaunted too luxuriously, that what one people has snatched from all can more easily be snatched from one by all? It is better to urge this and to storm the passions, not to circumvent them. If we can, let us speak more bravely; if not, more plainly. Farewell.

Putemus nos ad contionem vocatos; lex de abolendis divitiis fertur. His interrogationibus suasuri aut dissuasuri sumus? His effecturi, ut populus Romanus paupertatem, fundamentum et causam imperii sui, requirat ac laudet, divitias autem suas timeat, ut cogitet has se apud victos repperisse, hinc ambitum et largitiones et tumultus in urbem sanctissimam et temperantissimam inrupisse, nimis luxuriose ostentari gentium spolia, quod unus populus eripuerit omnibus, facilius ab omnibus uni eripi posse? Hanc satius est suadere et expugnare adfectus, non circumscribere. Si possumus, fortius loquamur; si minus, apertius. Vale.

You wish to know what I feel about liberal studies: I respect none, I count none among goods, that ends in money-making. They are hireling crafts, useful only so far as they prepare the mind, not detain it. We must linger over them only so long as the mind can do nothing greater; they are our apprenticeship, not our work.

De liberalibus studiis quid sentiam, scire desideras: nullum suspicio, nullum in bonis numero, quod ad aes exit. Meritoria artificia sunt, hactenus utilia, si praeparant ingenium, non detinent. Tamdiu enim istis inmorandum est, quamdiu nihil animus agere maius potest; rudimenta sunt nostra, non opera.

Why they are called liberal studies, you see: because they are worthy of a free man. But there is one study that is truly liberal — the one that makes a man free. This is the study of wisdom: lofty, brave, great-souled. The rest are petty and childish. Or do you believe there is any good in those whose professors you see to be the basest and most disgraceful of men? We ought not to be learning those things, but to have learned them. Some have judged it a question worth asking, about the liberal studies, whether they make a man good; but they do not even promise it, nor lay claim to the knowledge of this thing.

Quare liberalia studia dicta sint, vides; quia homine libero digna sunt. Ceterum unum studium vere liberale est, quod liberum facit. Hoc est sapientiae, sublime, forte, magnanimum. Cetera pusilla et puerilia sunt; an tu quicquam in istis esse credis boni, quorum professores turpissimos omnium ac flagitiosissimos cernis? Non discere debemus ista, sed didicisse. Quidam illud de liberalibus studiis quaerendum iudicaverunt, an virum bonum facerent; ne promittunt quidem nec huius rei scientiam adfectant.

The grammarian busies himself about the care of language and, if he wishes to range more widely, about histories, and, to push his bounds to their utmost, about poems. Which of these paves a way to virtue? The parsing of syllables, the niceness about words, the memory of tales, the law and measure of verses? What in these takes away fear, removes desire, bridles lust?

Grammaticus circa curam sermonis versatur et, si latius evagari vult, circa historias, iam ut longissime fines suos proferat, circa carmina. Quid horum ad virtutem viam sternit? Syllabarum enarratio et verborum diligentia et fabularum memoria et versuum lex ac modificatio? Quid ex his metum demit, cupiditatem eximit, libidinem frenat?

The question is whether these men teach virtue or not; if they do not teach it, neither do they impart it. If they do teach it, they are philosophers. Do you wish to know how little they sat down to teach virtue? See how unlike one another are the studies of them all; and yet there would be likeness, if they taught the same thing.

Quaeritur utrum doceant isti virtutem an non; si non docent, ne tradunt quidem. Si docent, philosophi sunt. Vis scire, quam non ad docendam virtutem consederint? Aspice, quam dissimilia inter se omnium studia sint; atqui similitudo esset idem docentium.

Unless perhaps they persuade you that Homer was a philosopher — while by the very arguments by which they gather it, they deny it. For now they make him a Stoic, approving virtue alone and fleeing pleasures and not departing from the honorable even at the price of immortality; now an Epicurean, praising the state of a quiet city and one passing its life amid banquets and songs; now a Peripatetic, bringing in three kinds of goods; now an Academic, saying all things are uncertain. It is plain that none of these is in him, because all of them are; for these disagree among themselves. Let us grant them that Homer was a philosopher; surely he was made wise before he knew any poems. Let us then learn the things that made Homer wise.

Nisi forte tibi Homerum philosophum fuisse persuadent, cum his ipsis, quibus colligunt, negent. Nam modo Stoicum illum faciunt, virtutem solam probantem et voluptates refugientem et ab honesto ne inmortalitatis quidem pretio recedentem, modo Epicureum, laudantem statum quietae civitatis et inter convivia cantusque vitam exigentis, modo Peripateticum, tria bonorum genera inducentem, modo Aeademicum Academicum, omnia incerta dicentem. Adparet nihil horum esse in illo, quia omnia sunt. Ista enim inter se dissident. Demus illis Homerum philosophum fuisse; nempe sapiens factus est, antequam carmina ulla cognosceret. Ergo illa discamus, quae Homerum fecere sapientem.

But to ask which was the elder in age, Homer or Hesiod, pertains no more to the matter than to know why Hecuba, though younger than Helen, bore her years so ill. What? Do you reckon that to inquire into the ages of Patroclus and Achilles pertains to the matter?

Hoc quidem me quaerere, uter maior aetate fuerit, Homerus an Hesiodus, non magis ad rem pertinet quam scire, cum minor Hecuba fuerit quam Helena, quare tam male tulerit aetatem. Quid? Inquam, annos Patrocli et Achillis inquirere ad rem existimas pertinere?

Do you ask where Ulysses wandered, rather than work that we ourselves not always wander? There is no leisure to hear whether he was tossed between Italy and Sicily, or beyond the world known to us — for so long an erring could not be in so narrow a space. The storms of the mind toss us daily, and wickedness drives us into all the evils of Ulysses. There is no lack of beauty to vex the eyes, no lack of an enemy; on this side savage monsters that rejoice in human blood, on that the treacherous blandishments of the ears, here shipwrecks and so many varieties of evils. Teach me this: how to love my country, how my wife, how my father, how, toward things so honorable, I may sail even when shipwrecked.

Quaeris, Vlixes ubi erraverit, potius quam efficias, ne nos semper erremus? Non vacat audire, utrum inter Italiam et Siciliam iactatus sit an extra notum nobis orbem, neque enim potuit in tam angusto error esse tam longus; tempestates nos animi cotidie iactant et nequitia in omnia Vlixis mala inpellit. Non deest forma, quae sollicitet oculos, non hostis; hinc monstra effera et humano cruore gaudentia, hinc insidiosa blandimenta aurium, hinc naufragia et tot varietates malorum. Hoc me doce, quomodo patriam amem, quomodo uxorem, quomodo patrem, quomodo ad haec tam honesta vel naufragus navigem.

Why do you inquire whether Penelope was chaste, whether she deceived her age? Whether she suspected that the man she saw was Ulysses, before she knew it? Teach me what chastity is, and how great a good is in it, whether it is placed in the body or in the mind.

Quid inquiris, an Penelopa pudica fuerit, an verba saeculo suo dederit? An Vlixem illum esse, quem videbat, antequam sciret, suspicata sit? Doce me, quid sit pudicitia et quantum in ea bonum, in corpore an in animo posita sit.

I pass to the musician: you teach me how high and low notes accord, how a concord is made of strings that yield an unequal sound. Make rather that my mind accord with itself, and my counsels not jangle. You show me which are the mournful modes; show me rather how, amid adversities, I may not utter a mournful voice.

Ad musicum transeo: doces me, quomodo inter se acutae ac graves consonent, quomodo nervorum disparem reddentium sonum fiat concordia; fac potius, quomodo animus secum meus consonet nec consilia mea discrepent. Monstras milli mihi, qui sint modi flebiles; monstra potius, quomodo inter adversa non emittam flebilem vocem.

The geometer teaches me to measure my broad estates, rather than teach me how to measure how much is enough for a man. He teaches me to count, and lends his fingers to avarice, rather than teach me that these reckonings have nothing to do with the matter — that a man is no happier whose property wearies the account-keepers; nay, how superfluous are the things he owns, who will be most unhappy if he is forced to reckon by himself how much he has.

Metiri me geometres docet latifundia potius quam doceat, quomodo metiar, quantum homini satis sit. Numerare docet me et avaritiae commodat digitos potius quam doceat nihil ad rem pertinere istas conputationes, non esse feliciorem, cuius patrimonium tabularios lassat, immo quam supervacua possideat, qui infelicissimus futurus est, si quantum habeat per se conputare cogetur.

What does it profit me to know how to divide a little field into parts, if I do not know how to divide it with my brother? What does it profit to gather up exactly the feet of a iugerum, and to take in even what has escaped the ten-foot rule, if a violent neighbor makes me wretched by scraping off something of mine? He teaches how I may lose nothing of my boundaries; but I wish to learn how to lose the whole of them with cheer.

Quid mihi prodest scire agellum in partes dividere, si nescio cum fratre dividere? Quid prodest colligere subtiliter pedes iugeri et conprendere etiam si quid decempedam effugit, si tristem me facit vicinus inpotens et aliquid ex meo abradens? Docet quomodo nihil perdam ex finibus meis; at ego discere volo, quomodo totos hilaris amittam.

’I am driven from my father’s land and my grandfather’s,’ he says. What? Before your grandfather, who held that land? Can you tell out whose — I do not say what man’s, but what people’s — it was? You entered it not as owner but as tenant. Whose tenant are you? If things go well with you, your heir’s. The jurists deny that anything public can be acquired by use; this that you hold, that you call yours, is public — nay, the property of the human race.

Paterno agro et avito, inquit, expellor. Quid? Ante avum tuum quis istum agrum tenuit? Cuius, non dico hominis, sed populi fuerit, expedire potes? Non dominus isto, sed colonus intrasti. Cuius colonus es? Si bene tecum agitur, heredis. Negant iurisconsulti quicquam usu capi publicum; hoc, quod tenes, quod tuum dicis, publicum est et quidem generis humani.

O excellent art! You know how to measure round things, you reduce to a square whatever shape you have taken, you tell the distances of the stars, there is nothing that does not fall within your measure. If you are an artist, measure a man’s soul. Tell how great it is, tell how small it is. You know what a straight line is; what does it profit you, if you are ignorant of what is straight in life?

O egregiam artem! Scis rotunda metiri, in quadratum redigis quamcumque acceperis formam, intervalla siderum dicis, nihil est, quod in mensuram tuam non cadat. Si artifex es, metire hominis animum. Dic quam magnus sit, dic quam pusillus sit. Scis, quae recta sit linea; quid tibi prodest, si quid in vita rectum sit ignoras?

Whither the cold star of Saturn withdraws itself, / through what circles of the sky the Cyllenian fire wanders.

Frigida Saturni sese quo stella receptet, Quos ignis caeli Cyllenius erret in orbes.

These things the continuous order of the fates drives, and an inevitable course. They return through their fixed turns, and either set in motion or mark the effects of all things. But whether they make whatever happens, what will the knowledge of an unchangeable thing profit? Or whether they signify it, what does it matter to foresee what you cannot escape? Whether you know these things, or do not know them —

Agit illa continuus ordo fatorum et inevitabilis cursus. Per statas vices remeant et effectus rerum omnium aut movent aut notant. Sed sive quicquid evenit faciunt, quid inmutabilis rei notitia proficiet? Sive significant, quid refert providere quod effugere non possis? Scias ista, nescias;

But if to the swift sun and the stars that follow in order / you will look back, never will the morrow’s hour deceive you, / nor will you be caught by the snares of a cloudless night.

Si vero solem ad rapidum stellasque sequentes Ordine respicies, numquam te crastina fallet Hora nec insidiis noctis cupiere serenae.

Does not the morrow’s hour deceive me? For what befalls one who does not know it deceives him. I do not know what will be; I know what can be. Of this I will despair of nothing; I look for the whole; if anything is remitted, I count it good. The hour deceives me if it spares me — but not even so does it deceive me. For as I know that all things can happen, so I know that they will not surely happen. I look for the favorable; I am prepared for evils.

Numquid me crastina non fallit hora? Fallit enim quod nescienti evenit. Ego quid futurum sit, nescio; quid fieri possit, scio. Ex hoc nihil desperabo, totum expecto; si quid remittitur, boni consido. Fallit me hora, si parcit, sed ne sic quidem fallit. Nam quemadmodum scio omnia accidere posse, sic scio et non utique casura. Utique secunda expecto, malis paratus sum.

In this you must bear with me, going not by the prescribed path. For I am not brought to receive painters into the number of the liberal arts, no more than sculptors or workers in marble or the other ministers of luxury. Equally I expel wrestlers, and the whole science that consists of oil and mud, from these liberal studies; or else I will receive both perfumers and cooks and the rest who fit their wits to our pleasures.

In illo feras me necesse est non per praescriptum euntem. Non enim adducor, ut in numerum liberalium artium pictores recipiam, non magis quam statuarios aut marmorarios aut ceteros luxuriae ministros. Aeque luctatores et totam oleo ac luto constantem scientiam expello ex his studiis liberalibus; aut et unguentarios recipiam et cocos et ceteros voluptatibus nostris ingenia accommodantes sua.

For what, I ask you, do they have that is liberal — those fasting vomiters, whose bodies are in fat and their minds in leanness and lethargy? Or do we believe that to be a liberal study for our youth, whom our ancestors exercised upright: to hurl spears, to whirl the stake, to ride the horse, to handle arms? They taught their children nothing that must be learned lying down. But neither these nor those teach or nourish virtue. For what does it profit to rule a horse and temper his course with the rein, and to be carried off by the most unbridled passions? What does it profit to conquer many in wrestling or the boxing-glove, and to be conquered by anger?

Quid enim, oro te, liberale habent isti ieiuni vomitores, quorum corpora in sagina, animi in macie et veterno sunt? An liberale studium istuc esse iuventuti nostrae credimus, quam maiores nostri rectam exercuerunt hastilia iacere, sudem torquere, equum agitare, arma tractare? Nihil liberos suos docebant, quod discendum esset iacentibus. Sed nec hae nec illae docent aluntve virtutem. Quid enim prodest equum regere et cursum eius freno temperare, adfectibus effrenatissimis abstrahi? Quid prodest multos vincere luctatione vel caestu, ab iracundia vinci?

What then? Do liberal studies confer nothing on us? Much, for other ends; for virtue, nothing. For even these mean arts, avowedly so, that consist of the hand, confer very much on the instruments of life, yet do not pertain to virtue. Why then do we educate our sons in the liberal studies? Not because they can give virtue, but because they prepare the mind to receive virtue. As that first ’lettering,’ as the ancients called it, by which the elements are handed to boys, does not teach the liberal arts but soon makes a place for the arts to be grasped, so the liberal arts do not lead the mind to virtue, but make it ready.

Quid ergo? Nihil nobis liberalia conferunt studia? Ad alia multum, ad virtutem nihil. Nam et hae viles ex professo artes, quae manu constant, ad instrumenta vitae plurimum conferunt, tamen ad virtutem non pertinent. Quare ergo liberalibus studiis filios erudimus? Non quia virtutem dare possunt, sed quia animum ad accipiendam virtutem praeparant. Quemadmodum prima illa, ut antiqui vocabant, litteratura, per quam pueris elementa traduntur, non docet liberales artes, sed mox percipiendis locum parat, sic liberales artes non perducunt animum ad virtutem, sed expediunt.

Posidonius says there are four kinds of arts: there are the common and base, there are the entertaining, there are the childish, there are the liberal. The common are those of craftsmen, which consist of the hand and are taken up with equipping life, in which there is no pretense of grace, none of the honorable.

Quattuor ait esse artium Posidonius genera: sunt volgares et sordidae, sunt ludicrae, sunt pueriles, sunt liberales. Volgares opificum, quae manu constant et ad instruendam vitam occupatae sunt, in quibus nulla decoris, nulla honesti simulatio est.

The entertaining are those that aim at the pleasure of the eyes and ears. To these you may count the machinists, who devise stages rising of themselves and floors that grow silently into the air, and other surprises out of the unexpected — things that cohered now gaping apart, or things that stood apart coming together of their own accord, or things that jutted out gradually subsiding into themselves. By these the eyes of the unskilled are struck; they wonder at everything sudden, because they do not know the causes.

Ludicrae sunt, quae ad voluptatem oculorum atque aurium tendunt. His adnumeres licet machinatores, qui pegmata per se surgentia excogitant et tabulata tacite in sublime crescentia et alias ex inopinato varietates aut dehiscentibus, quae cohaerebant, aut bis, quae distabant, sua sponte coeuntibus aut his, quae eminebant, paulatim in se residentibus. His imperitorum feriuntur oculi omnia subita, quia causas non novere, mirandum.

Childish, and having something like the liberal, are those arts which the Greeks call enkyklioi (’encyclic’), but our people call liberal. But the only liberal ones — nay, to speak more truly, the only free ones — are those whose care is virtue.

Pueriles sunt et aliquid habentes liberalibus simile hae artes, quas ἐγκυκλίους Graeci, nostri autem liberales vocant. Solae autem liberales sunt, immo, ut dicam verius, liberae, quibus curae virtus est.

’As there is some part of philosophy that is natural,’ he says, ’some that is moral, some that is rational, so this crowd of liberal arts too claims a place for itself in philosophy. When one comes to natural questions, one stands by the testimony of geometry; therefore it is a part of that which it helps.’

Quemadmodum, inquit, est aliqua pars philosophiae naturalis, est aliqua moralis, est aliqua rationalis, sic et haec quoque liberalium artium turba locum sibi in philosophia vindicat. Cum ventum est ad naturales quaestiones, geometriae testimonio statur; ergo eius, quam adiuvat, pars est.

Many things help us, and yet are not parts of us. Nay, if they were parts, they would not help. Food is a help to the body, yet is not a part of it. The service of geometry gives us something; it is necessary to philosophy as the smith is to it. But neither is the smith a part of geometry, nor that a part of philosophy.

Multa adiuvant nos nec ideo partes nostri sunt. Immo si partes essent, non adiuvarent. Cibus adiutorium corporis nec tamen pars est. Aliquid nobis praestat geometriae ministerium; sic philosophiae necessaria est, quomodo ipsi faber. Sed nec hic geometriae pars est nec illa philosophiae.

Besides, each has its own bounds. For the wise man inquires into and knows the causes of natural things, whose numbers and measures the geometer pursues and computes. By what reasoning the heavenly bodies hold together, what is their force, what their nature, the wise man knows; their courses and recurrences, and certain observations by which they descend and are lifted and at times present an appearance of standing still — though it is not allowed the heavenly bodies to stand still — the mathematician gathers.

Praeterea utraque fines suos habet. Sapiens enim causas naturalium et quaerit et novit, quorum numeros mensurasque geometres persequitur et subputat. Qua ratione constent caelestia, quae illis sit vis quaeve natura, sapiens scit; cursus et recursus et quasdam observationes, per quas descendunt et adlevantur ac speciem interdum standum praebent, cum caelestibus stare non liceat, colligit mathematicus.

What cause produces images in a mirror, the wise man will know; this the geometer can tell you — how far a body ought to be from its image, and what shape of mirror gives what images. That the sun is great, the philosopher will prove; how great it is, the mathematician, who proceeds by a certain practice and exercise; but in order to proceed, he must beg certain first principles. Now an art is not of its own right whose foundation is held by sufferance.

Quae causa in speculo imagines exprimat, sciet sapiens; illud tibi geometres potest dicere, quantum abesse debeat corpus ab imagine et qualis forma speculi quales imagines reddat. Magnum esse solem philosophus probabit; quantus sit, mathematicus, qui usu quodam et exercitatione procedit; sed ut procedat, impetranda illi quaedam principia sunt. Non est autem ars sui iuris, cui precarium fundamentum est.

Philosophy seeks nothing from another; it raises its whole work from its own ground; mathematics, so to speak, builds on the surface, on another’s ground. It receives first principles, by whose benefit it reaches further. If it went of itself to the truth, if it could comprehend the nature of the whole world, I would say it conferred much on our minds, which grow by the handling of heavenly things and draw something from on high. By one thing alone is the mind perfected: the unchangeable knowledge of goods and evils; and no other art inquires about goods and evils.

Philosophia nil ab alio petit, totum opus a solo excitat; mathematice, ut ita dicam, superficiaria est, in alieno aedificat. Accipit prima, quorum beneficio ad ulteriora perveniat. Si per se iret ad verum, si totius mundi naturam posset conprendere, dicerem multum conlaturam mentibus nostris, quae tractatu caelestium crescunt trahuntque aliquid ex alto. Una re consummatur animus, scientia bonorum ac malorum inmutabili; nihil autem ulla ars alia de bonis ac malis quaerit.

I should like to go round the virtues one by one. Fortitude is the despiser of things to be feared; it looks down on terrible things and things that would put our liberty under the yoke, it challenges them, it breaks them. Do the liberal studies, then, strengthen this? Faith is the most sacred good of the human breast; by no necessity is it driven to deceive, by no reward corrupted. ’Burn,’ it says, ’cut, kill; I will not betray; but the more pain seeks out the secrets, the deeper I will hide them.’ Can the liberal studies make such minds? Temperance commands the pleasures; some it hates and drives off, some it dispenses and reduces to a sound measure, and it never comes to them for their own sake. It knows that the best measure of things desired is to take not as much as you wish, but as much as you ought.

Singulas lubet circumire virtutes. Fortitudo contemptrix timendorum est; terribilia et sub iugum libertatem nostram mittentia despicit, provocat, frangit. Numquid ergo hanc liberalia studia corroborant? Fides sanctissimum humani pectoris bonum est, nulla necessitate ad fallendum cogitur, nullo corrumpitur praemio. Ure, inquit, caede, occide; non prodam, sed quo magis secreta quaeret dolor, hoc illa altius condam. Numquid liberalia studia hos animos facere possunt? Temperantia voluptatibus imperat, alias odit atque abigit, alias dispensat et ad sanum modum redigit nec umquam ad illas propter ipsas venit. Scit optimum esse modum cupitorum non quantum velis, sed quantum debeas sumere.

Humanity forbids us to be proud toward our fellows, forbids us to be greedy. In words, in deeds, in feelings it shows itself kind and easy to all. It counts no man’s evil its own. And it loves its own good for this above all, that it is going to be a good to someone. Do the liberal studies teach these manners? No more than simplicity, than modesty and moderation, no more than frugality and thrift, no more than mercy, which spares another’s blood as its own and knows that a man is not to be used up prodigally by a man.

Humanitas vetat superbum esse adversus socios, vetat avarum. Verbis, rebus, adfectibus comem se facilemque omnibus praestat. Nullum alienum malum putat. Bonum autem suum ideo maxime, quod alicui bono futurum est, amat. Numquid liberalia studia hos mores praecipiunt? Non magis quam simplicitatem, quam modestiam ac moderationem, non magis quam frugalitatem ac parsimoniam, non magis quam clementiam, quae alieno sanguini tamquam suo parcit et scit homini non esse homine prodige utendum.

’When you say,’ he objects, ’that without the liberal studies one does not come to virtue, how do you deny that they confer nothing on virtue?’ Because neither without food does one come to virtue, yet food does not pertain to virtue. Timber confers nothing on a ship, although a ship is not made except of timber. There is no reason, I say, to think a thing is brought about by the help of that without which it cannot be brought about.

Cum dicatis, inquit, sine liberalibus studiis ad virtutem non perveniri, quemadmodum negatis illa nihil conferre virtuti? Quia nec sine cibo ad virtutem pervenitur, cibus tamen ad virtutem non pertinet. Ligna navi nihil conferunt, quamvis non fiat navis nisi ex lignis. Non est, inquam, cur aliquid putes eius adiutorio fieri, sine quo non potest fieri.

Indeed this too may be said: that one can come to wisdom without the liberal studies; for although virtue must be learned, yet it is not learned through these. But what reason have I to think that the man who knows no letters will not be wise, when wisdom is not in letters? It hands over things, not words; and I do not know whether the memory is not surer that has no aid outside itself.

Potest quidem etiam illud dici: sine liberalibus studiis veniri ad sapientiam posse; quamvis enim virtus discenda sit, tamen non per haec discitur. Quid est autem, quare existimem non futurum sapientem eum, qui litteras nescit, cum sapientia non sit in litteris? Res tradit, non verba, et nescio an certior memoria sit, quae nullum extra se subsidium habet.

Wisdom is a great and spacious thing. It needs empty room. One must learn of things divine and human, of past and future, of the perishable and the eternal, of time. About this one thing, see how many questions are asked: first, whether it is anything in itself; then, whether anything was before time without time; whether it began with the world, or, since something was even before the world, time too was.

Magna et spatiosa res est sapientia. Vacuo illi loco opus est. De divinis humanisque discendum est, de praeteritis de futuris, de caducis de aeternis, de tempore. De quo uno vide quam multa quaerantur: primum an per se sit aliquid; deinde an aliquid ante tempus sit sine tempore; cum mundo coeperit an etiam ante mundum quia fuerit aliquid, fuerit et tempus.

There are countless questions about the soul alone: whence it is, of what kind, when it begins to be, how long it is; whether it passes from one place to another and changes its dwelling, cast into other forms of living creatures, or serves no more than once and, once sent forth, ranges through the universe; whether it is a body or not; what it will do, when it has ceased to do anything through us; how it will use its liberty, when it has escaped from this cage; whether it forgets the past and begins to know itself only from there, whence, withdrawn from the body, it has retired on high.

Innumerabiles quaestiones sunt de animo tantum: unde sit, qualis sit, quando esse incipiat, quamdiu sit; aliunde alio transeat et domicilia mutet in alias animalium formas aliasque coniectus, an non amplius quam semel serviat et emissus vagetur in toto; utrum corpus sit an non sit; quid sit facturus, cum per nos aliquid facere desierit, quomodo libertate sua usurus, cum ex hac effugerit cavea; an obliviscatur priorum et illinc nosse se incipiat, unde corpori abductus in sublime secessit.

Whatever part of things human and divine you take in hand, you will be wearied by the vast abundance of things to be inquired into and learned. That these things, so many, so great, may have a free lodging, the superfluous must be taken from the mind. Virtue will not give herself into these straits; a great thing requires roomy space. Let all things be driven out; let the whole breast be empty for her.

Quamcumque partem rerum humanarum divinarumque conprenderis, ingenti copia quaerendorum ac discendorum fatigaberis. Haec tam multa, tam magna ut habere possint liberum hospitium, supervacua ex animo tollenda sunt. Non dabit se in has angustias virtus; laxum spatium res magna desiderat. Expellantur omnia, totum pectus illi vacet.

’But the knowledge of many arts delights,’ you say. Let us therefore keep only so much of them as is necessary. Or do you think a man to be blamed who buys up superfluities for use, and spreads a parade of costly things in his house — and do you not think him so, who is taken up with the superfluous furniture of letters? To wish to know more than is enough is a kind of intemperance.

At enim delectat artium notitia multarum. Tantum itaque ex illis retineamus, quantum necessarium est. An tu existimas reprendendum, qui supervacua usibus conparat et pretiosarum rerum pompam in domo explicat, non putas eum, qui occupatus est in supervacua litterarum supellectile? Plus scire velle quam sit satis, intemperantiae genus est.

What? That this pursuit of the liberal arts makes men troublesome, wordy, ill-timed, pleased with themselves, and therefore not learning the necessary things, because they have learned the superfluous. Didymus the grammarian wrote four thousand books. I should pity him, if he had merely read so many superfluous things. In these books it is asked about Homer’s country, in these about Aeneas’s true mother, in these whether Anacreon lived more lustful or more drunken, in these whether Sappho was a public woman, and other things that you would have to unlearn if you knew them. Go now, and deny that life is long.

Quid? Quod ista liberalium artium consectatio molestos, verbosos, intempestivos, sibi placentes facit et ideo non discentes necessaria, quia supervacua didicerunt. Quattuor milia librorum Didymus grammaticus scripsit. Misererer, si tam multa supervacua legisset. In his libris de patria Homeri quaeritur, in his de Aeneae matre vera, in his libidinosior Anacreon an ebriosior vixerit, in his an Sappho publica fuerit, et alia, quae erant dediscenda, si scires. I nunc et longam esse vitam nega.

But when you come to our own people too, I will show you many things that should be given to the axe. This praise, ’O learned man!’, is bought at a great expense of time, at a great trouble to other men’s ears. Let us be content with this more rustic title: ’O good man!’

Sed ad nostros quoque cum perveneris, ostendam multa securibus reddenda. Magno impendio temporum, magna alienarum aurium molestia laudatio haec constat: O hominem litteratum! Simus hoc titulo rusticiore contenti: O virum bonum!

Is it so? Shall I unroll the annals of all nations and ask who first wrote poems? Shall I compute how much time lies between Orpheus and Homer, when I have no calendar? And shall I review the trifles of Aristarchus, with which he pricked other men’s verses, and wear out my age on syllables? Shall I so stick in the dust of geometry? Has that wholesome precept so slipped from me — ’Spare your time’? Am I to know these things? And what am I to be ignorant of?

Itane est? Annales evolvam omnium gentium et quis primus carmina scripserit quaeram? Quantum temporis inter Orphea intersit et Homerum, cum fastos non habeam, computabo? Et Aristarchi ineptias, quibus aliena carmina conpunxit, recognoscam et aetatem in syllabis conteram? Itane in geometriae pulvere haerebo? Adeo mihi praeceptum illud salutare excidit: Tempori parce? Haec sciam? Et quid ignorem?

Apion the grammarian, who in the time of Gaius Caesar made the circuit of all Greece and was adopted into the name of Homer by every city, used to say that Homer, having finished both his materials — the Odyssey and the Iliad — added a beginning to his work, in which he embraced the whole Trojan war. As proof of this he alleged that Homer had set in the first verse, of set purpose, two letters containing the number of his books.

Apion grammaticus, qui sub C. Caesare tota circulatus est Graecia et in nomen Homeri ab omnibus civitatibus adoptatus, aiebat Homerum utraque materia consummata, et Odyssia et Iliade, principium adiecisse operi suo, quo bellum Troianum complexus est. Huius rei argumentum adferebat, quod duas litteras in primo versu posuisset ex industria librorum suorum numerum continentes.

Such things he must know who wishes to know much, not to consider how much time bad health takes from you, how much public business, how much private business, how much daily business, how much sleep. Measure your age; it does not hold so many things.

Talia sciat oportet, qui multa vult scire, non cogitare, quantum temporis tibi auferat mala valetudo, quantum occupatio publica, quantum occupatio privata, quantum occupatio cotidiana, quantum somnus. Metire aetatem tuam; tam multa non capit.

I speak of the liberal studies; but the philosophers — how much they have that is superfluous, how much that withdraws from use! They too have come down to the distinctions of syllables and the properties of conjunctions and prepositions, and have envied the grammarians, envied the geometers. Whatever was superfluous in those men’s arts, they have carried over into their own. So it has come about that they know how to speak more carefully than to live.

De liberalibus studiis loquor; philosophi quantum habent supervacui, quantum ab usu recedentis! Ipsi quoque ad syllabarum distinctiones et coniunctionum ac praepositionum proprietates descenderunt et invidere grammaticis, invidere geometris. Quicquid in illorum artibus supervacuum erat, transtulere in suam. Sic effectum est, ut diligentius loqui scirent quam vivere.

Hear how much harm excessive subtlety does, and how hostile it is to truth. Protagoras says that on every matter one can argue on either side with equal force — and about this very thing, whether every matter is debatable on either side. Nausiphanes says that of the things which seem to be, none is more than it is not.

Audi, quantum mali faciat nimia subtilitas et quam infesta veritati sit. Protagoras ait de omni re in utramque partem disputari posse ex aequo et de hac ipsa, an omnis res in utramque partem disputabilis sit. Nausiphanes ait ex his, quae videntur esse, nihil magis esse quam non esse.

Parmenides says that of the things which seem, none is, except the universe alone. Zeno of Elea threw all problems off the problem: he says that nothing is. About much the same the Pyrrhoneans busy themselves, and the Megarians and the Eretrians and the Academics, who brought in a new knowledge — to know nothing.

Parmenides ait ex his, quae videntur, nihil esse uno excepto universo. Zenon Eleates omnia negotia de negotio deiecit: ait nihil esse. Circa eadem fere Pyrrhonei versantur et Megarici et Eretrici et Academici, qui novam induxerunt scientiam, nihil scire.

Throw all these into that superfluous herd of liberal studies; those men hand me a knowledge that will not profit, these snatch away the hope of all knowledge. It is better to know superfluous things than nothing. Those men do not hold up a light by which the keen sight may be guided to the truth; these dig out my eyes. If I believe Protagoras, there is nothing in the nature of things but the doubtful; if Nausiphanes, this one thing is certain, that nothing is certain; if Parmenides, there is nothing but the one; if Zeno, not even the one.

Haec omnia in illum supervacuum studiorum liberalium gregem coice; illi mihi non profuturam scientiam tradunt, hi spem omnis scientiae eripiunt. Satius est supervacua scire quam nihil. Illi non praeferunt lumen, per quod acies derigatur ad verum; hi oculos mihi effodiunt. Si Protagorae credo, nihil in rerum natura est nisi dubium; si Nausiphani, hoc unum certum est, nihil esse certi; si Parmenidi, nihil est praeter unum; si Zenoni, ne unum quidem.

What then are we? What are these things that surround us, feed us, sustain us? The whole nature of things is a shadow — either empty, or deceptive. I could not easily say with which I am the more angry: those who wished us to know nothing, or those who did not leave us even this — to know nothing. Farewell.

Quid ergo nos sumus? Quid ista, quae nos circumstant, aiunt, sustinent? Tota rerum natura umbra est aut inanis aut fallax. Non facile dixerim, utris magis irascar, illis, qui nos nihil scire voluerunt, an illis, qui ne hoc quidem nobis reliquerunt, nihil scire. Vale.

You desire a useful thing, and one necessary to a man hastening toward wisdom: that philosophy be divided, and its huge body arranged into members. For we are more easily brought to the knowledge of the whole through its parts. Would that, as the whole face of the world comes into view, so the whole of philosophy could meet us — a spectacle most like the world. For surely it would snatch all mortals into admiration of it, once they had let go the things we now, in our great ignorance of great things, believe great. But since this cannot happen, it must be looked at by us as the secrets of the world are discerned.

Rem utilem desideras et ad sapientiam properanti necessariam, dividi philosophiam et ingens corpus eius in membra disponi. Facilius enim per partes in cognitionem totius adducimur. Utinam quidem quemadmodum universa mundi facies in conspectum venit, ita philosophia tota nobis posset occurrere, simillimum mundo spectaculum. Profecto enim omnes mortales in admirationem sui raperet relictis iis, quae nunc magna magnorum ignorantia credimus. Sed quia contingere hoc non potest, est sic nobis aspicienda, quemadmodum mundi secreta cernuntur.

The wise man’s mind, indeed, embraces its whole mass and runs over it no less swiftly than our sight runs over the sky; but for us, who must break through the fog and whose vision fails close at hand, the single parts can more easily be shown, since we are not yet capacious of the whole. I will do, then, what you require, and divide philosophy into parts, not into fragments. For it is useful to divide it, not to chop it up. For it is as hard to comprehend the smallest things as the greatest.

Sapientis quidem animus totam molem eius amplectitur nec minus illam velociter obit quam caelum acies nostra; nobis autem, quibus perrumpenda caligo est et quorum visus in proximo deficit, singula quaeque ostendi facilius possunt universi nondum capacibus. Faciam ergo quod exigis, et philosophiam in partes, non in frusta, dividam. Dividi enim illam, non concidi, utile est. Nam conprehendere quemadmodum maxima ita minima difficile est.

The people is distributed into tribes, the army into centuries. Whatever has grown to a greater size is more easily recognized if it has been separated into parts — which, as I said, ought not to be countless and tiny. For too much division has the same fault as none; whatever has been cut up to the point of dust is like the confused.

Discribitur in tribus populus, in centurias exercitus. Quicquid in maius crevit, facilius agnoscitur, si discessit in partes, quas, ut dixi, innumerabiles esse et parvulas non oportet. Idem enim vitii habet nimia quod nulla divisio; simile confuso est, quidquid usque in pulverem sectum est.

First, then, if it seems good to you, I will say what difference there is between wisdom and philosophy. Wisdom is the perfected good of the human mind. Philosophy is the love and pursuit of wisdom. This tends toward where that has arrived. Whence philosophy is named is plain; for by its very name it confesses what it loves.

Primum itaque, si videtur tibi, dicam, inter sapientiam et philosophiam quid intersit. Sapientia perfectum bonum est mentis humanae. Philosophia sapientiae amor est et adfectatio. Haec eo tendit, quo illa pervenit. Philosophia unde dicta sit, apparet. Ipso enim nomine fatetur quid amet.

Some have so defined wisdom as to say it is the knowledge of things divine and human. Some thus: wisdom is to know things divine and human and their causes. This addition seems to me superfluous, because the causes of things divine and human are a part of things divine. There were those too who defined philosophy now this way, now that. Some said it was the pursuit of virtue, some the pursuit of correcting the mind; by some it was called the appetite for right reason.

Sapientiam quidam ita finierunt, ut dicerent divinorum et humanorum scientiam. Quidam ita: sapientia est nosse divina et humana et horum causas. Supervacua mihi haec videtur adiectio, quia causae divinorum humanorumque pars divinorum sunt. Philosophiam quoque fuerunt qui aliter atque aliter finirent. Alii studium illam virtutis esse dixerunt, alii studium corrigendae mentis, a quibusdam dicta est adpetitio rectae rationis.

This stands as if settled: that there is some difference between philosophy and wisdom. For it cannot be that what is sought and what seeks are the same. As there is a great difference between avarice and money — since the one desires, the other is desired — so between philosophy and wisdom. For the latter is the effect and reward of the former; the former comes, the latter is come to.

Illud quasi constitit, aliquid inter philosophiam et sapientiam interesse. Neque enim fieri potest ut idem sit quod adfectatur et quod adfectat. Quomodo multum inter avaritiam et pecuniam interest, cum illa cupiat, haec concupiscatur, sic inter philosophiam et sapientiam. Haec enim illius effectus ac praemium est; illa venit, ad hanc venitur.

Stranger, halt, and read the wisdom of Dossennus.

Hospes resiste et sophian Dossenni lege.

Certain of our school, although philosophy was the pursuit of virtue and the one was sought, the other did the seeking, nonetheless did not think the two could be pulled apart. For neither is philosophy without virtue, nor virtue without philosophy. Philosophy is the pursuit of virtue, but through virtue itself; and neither can virtue be without the study of itself, nor the study of virtue without virtue. For it is not as with those who try to strike something from a distance, where the one who aims is in one place, the thing aimed at in another. Nor, as the roads that lead to cities are outside the cities, are the ways to virtue outside virtue; one comes to virtue through virtue itself; philosophy and virtue cohere with each other.

Quidam ex nostris, quamvis philosophia studium virtutis esset et haec peteretur, illa peteret, tamen non putaverunt illas distrahi posse. Nam nec philosophia sine virtute est nec sine philosophia virtus. Philosophia studium virtutis est, sed per ipsam virtutem; nec virtus autem esse sine studio sui potest nec virtutis studium sine ipsa. Non enim quemadmodum in iis, qui aliquid ex distanti loco ferire conantur, alibi est qui petit, alibi quod petitur. Nec quemadmodum itinera quae ad urbes perducunt, sic viae ad virtutem sunt extra ipsam; ad virtutem venitur per ipsam; cohaerent inter se philosophia virtusque.

The greatest and most numerous authorities have said there are three parts of philosophy: the moral, the natural, the rational. The first composes the mind. The second searches out the nature of things. The third weighs the properties of words, their structure, and arguments, lest falsehoods creep in for the true. For the rest, there have been found those who divided philosophy into fewer parts and those who divided it into more.

Philosophiae tres partes esse dixerunt et maximi et plurimi auctores: moralem, naturalem, rationalem. Prima conponit animum. Secunda rerum naturam scrutatur. Tertia proprietates verborum exigit et structuram et argumentationes, ne pro vero falsa subrepant. Ceterum inventi sunt et qui in pauciora philosophiam et qui in plura diducerent.

Certain of the Peripatetics added a fourth part, the civil, because it requires a certain training of its own and is occupied about another matter. Some have added to these a part they call oikonomike, the science of managing the household estate. Some have set apart a topic on the kinds of life. But none of these but will be found in that moral part.

Quidam ex Peripateticis quartam partem adiecerunt civilem, quia propriam quandam exercitationem desideret et circa aliam materiam occupata sit. Quidam adfecerunt his partem, quam οἰκονομικὴν vocant, administrandae familiaris rei scientiam. Quidam et de generibus vitae locum separaverunt. Nihil autem horum non in illa parte morali reperietur.

The Epicureans thought there were two parts of philosophy, the natural and the moral; the rational they removed. Then, when by the very facts they were forced to distinguish ambiguities and to convict falsehoods lurking under a show of truth, they too brought in — under another name — the topic they call ’of judgment and the rule,’ the rational; but they reckon it an accession to the natural part.

Epicurei duas partes philosophiae putaverunt esse, naturalem atque moralem; rationalem removerunt. Deinde cum ipsis rebus cogerentur ambigua secernere, falsa sub specie veri latentia coarguere, ipsi quoque locum, quem de iudicio et regula appellant, alio nomine rationalem induxerunt, sed eum accessionem esse naturalis partis existimant.

The Cyrenaics did away with the natural along with the rational, and were content with the moral; but these too, what they remove, they bring in another way. For they divide the moral into five parts: one on things to be shunned and sought, a second on the passions, a third on actions, a fourth on causes, a fifth on proofs. The causes of things are from the natural part, the proofs from the rational.

Cyrenaici naturalia cum rationalibus sustulerunt et contenti fuerunt monilibus, sed hi quoque quae removent, aliter inducunt. In quinque enim partes moralia dividunt, ut una sit de fugiendis et petendis, altera de adfectibus, tertia de actionibus, quarta de causis, quinta de argumentis. Causae rerum ex naturali parte sunt, argumenta ex rationali.

Ariston of Chios said the natural and the rational were not only superfluous but contrary. The moral too, which alone he had left, he pruned; for he removed the topic that contains admonitions and said it belonged to the tutor, not the philosopher — as if the wise man were anything other than the tutor of the human race.

Ariston Chius non tantum supervacuas esse dixit naturalem et rationalem, sed etiam contrarias. Moralem quoque, quam solam reliquerat, circumcidit; nam eum locum, qui monitiones continet, sustulit et paedagogi esse dixit, non philosophi, tamquam quidquam aliud sit sapiens quam humani generis paedagogus.

Therefore, since philosophy is tripartite, let us first begin to arrange its moral part. This too it has been thought good to divide again into three: the first being the inspection that distributes to each his own and estimates how much each thing is worth — most useful of all. For what is so necessary as to set prices on things? The second on impulse, the third on actions. For the first is that you judge how much each thing is worth, the second that you take toward them an impulse ordered and tempered, the third that there be agreement between your impulse and your action, that in all these you be of one mind with yourself.

Ergo cum tripertita sit philosophia, moralem eius partem primum incipiamus disponere. Quam in tria rursus dividi placuit, ut prima esset inspectio suum cuique distribuens et aestimans quanto quidque dignum sit, maxime utilis. Quid enim est tam necessarium quam pretia rebus inponere? Secunda de impetu, de actionibus tertia. Primum enim est, ut quanti quidque sit iudices, secundum, ut impetum ad illa capias ordinatum temperatumque, tertium, ut inter impetum tuum actionemque conveniat, ut in omnibus istis tibi ipse consentias.

Whatever of the three is lacking disturbs the rest also. For what does it profit to have all things estimated against each other, if you are excessive in impulse? What does it profit to have repressed impulse and to have your desires in your own power, if in the very performance of things you are ignorant of the seasons, and do not know when and where and how each thing ought to be done? For it is one thing to know the worths and prices of things, another the junctures, another to rein in impulses and to go to action — not to rush. Then, therefore, is life concordant with itself, when action does not desert impulse, and impulse is conceived from the worth of each thing, slacker or keener accordingly as that is worthy to be sought.

Quicquid ex tribus defuit, turbat et cetera. Quid enim prodest inter se aestimati habere omnia, si sis in impetu nimius? Quid prodest impetus repressisse et habere cupiditates in tua potestate, si in ipsa rerum actione tempora ignores nec scias quando quidque et ubi et quemadmodum agi debeat? Aliud est enim dignitates et pretia rerum nosse, aliud articulos, aliud impetus refrenare et ad agenda ire, non ruere. Tunc ergo vita concors sibi est, ubi actio non destituit impetum, impetus ex dignitate rei cuiusque concipitur proinde remissus vel acrior, prout illa digna est peti.

The natural part of philosophy is split into two: the corporeal and the incorporeal. Each is divided into its own, so to speak, grades. The topic of bodies into these first: into the things that act and the things that are begotten from these; and the elements are begotten. The very topic of the elements is, as some think, simple; as others think, divided into matter, and the cause that moves all things, and the elements.

Naturalis pars philosophiae in duo scinditur: corporalia et incorporalia. Utraque dividuntur in suos, ut ita dicam, gradus. Corporum locus in hos primum, in ea quae faciunt et quae ex his gignuntur; gignuntur autem elementa. Ipse de elementis locus, ut quidam putant, simplex est, ut quidam, in materiam et causam omnia moventem et elementa dividitur.

I will follow the topmost peaks of things.

Summa sequar fastigia rerum;

These things, Lucilius, best of men, I do not deter you from reading, provided that whatever you read you refer at once to your conduct. Restrain your passions, rouse what is languishing in you, bind tight what is loosened, tame the unruly; harass your own desires and the public’s as much as you can; and to those who say, ’How long the same things?’ answer:

Haec, Lucili virorum optime, quo minus legas non deterreo, dummodo quicquid legeris, ad mores statim referas. Illos conpesce, marcentia in te excita, soluta constringe, contumacia doma, cupiditates tuas publicasque quantum potes vexa; et istis dicentibus quo usque eadem? responde:

I ought rather to say, ’How long will you go on sinning in the same way? You want the remedies to cease before the vices? I, for my part, will say it the more, and, because you refuse, I will persist. Then medicine begins to profit, when its touch has drawn out the pain in a numbed body. I will say things that will profit you even against your will. Let some voice, and not a flattering one, sometimes come to you, and, since each of you will not hear the truth singly, hear it in public.’

ego debebam dicere quo usque eadem peccabitis? Remedia ante vultis quam vitia desinere? Ego vero eo magis dicam et, quia recusatis, perseverabo. Tunc incipit medicina proficere, ubi in corpore alicnato alienato dolorem tactus expressit. Dicam etiam invitis profutura. Aliquando aliqua ad vos non blanda vox veniat, et quia verum singuli audire non vultis, publice audite.

How far will you push out the bounds of your possessions? A field that held a whole people is too narrow for one master. How far will you extend your plowlands, you who are not content even to bound the measure of your estates by the space of provinces? The courses of famous rivers run through private ground, and great streams, the boundaries of great nations, are yours from source to mouth. This too is little, unless you have ringed your great estates with seas, unless across the Adriatic and the Ionian and the Aegean your bailiff reigns, unless islands, the dwellings of great captains, are reckoned among the cheapest of things. Possess as widely as you please; let an estate be what was once called an empire; make yours whatever you can — so long as more belongs to another.

Quo usque fines possessionum propagabitis? Ager uni domino, qui populum cepit, angustus est. Quo usque arationes vestras porrigetis, ne provinciarum quidem spatio contenti circumscribere praediorum modum? Inlustrium fluminum per privatum decursus est et amnes magni magnarumque gentium termini usque ad ostium a fonte vestri sunt. Hoc quoque parum est, nisi latifundiis vestris maria cinxistis, nisi trans Hadriam et Ionium Aegaeumque vester vilicus regnat, nisi insulae, ducum domicilia magnorum, inter vilissima rerum numerantur. Quam vultis late possidete, sit fundus quod aliquando imperium vocabatur; facite vestrum quicquid potestis, dum plus sit alieno.

Now I speak with you, whose luxury spreads as broadly as those men’s avarice. To you I say: how far will there be no lake over which the gables of your villas do not loom? No river whose banks your buildings do not fringe? Wherever the veins of warm waters bubble up, there new resorts of luxury will be raised. Wherever the shore curves into some bay, there at once you will lay foundations, and, not content with any ground but what you have made by hand, you will drive the sea inward. Though your roofs gleam in all places — here set on mountains for a vast prospect of lands and sea, there raised from the plain to the height of mountains — though you have built much, though hugely, still you are each but a single body, and a little one. What good are many bedchambers? You lie in one. A place is not yours, wherever you are not.

Nunc vobiscum loquor, quorum aeque spatiose luxuria quam illorum avaritia diffunditur. Vobis dico: quo usque nullus erit lacus cui non villarum vestrarum fastigia immineant? Nullum flumen cuius non ripas aedificia vestra praetexant? Ubicumque scatebunt aquarum calentium venae, ibi nova deversoria luxuriae excitabuntur. Ubicumque in aliquem sinum litus curvabitur, vos protinus fundamenta iacietis nec contenti solo nisi quod manu feceritis, mare agetis introrsus. Omnibus licet locis tecta vestra resplendeant, aliubi inposita montibus in vastum terrarum marisque prospectum, aliubi ex plano in altitudinem montium educta, cum multa aedificaveritis, cum ingentia, tamen et singula corpora estis et parvola. Quid prosunt multa cubicula? In uno iacetis. Non est vestrum ubicumque non estis.

Then I pass to you, whose deep and insatiable gullet ransacks now the seas, now the lands, pursuing some prey with hooks, some with snares, some with the various kinds of nets, at great labor; no creatures have peace, except those you are sick of. How little of those feasts, prepared by so many hands, do you taste with a mouth wearied by pleasures? How little of that wild beast, perilously taken, does the master, queasy and nauseous, taste? How little of so many shellfish, conveyed from so far, glides down that insatiable stomach? Wretches, do you at all understand that you have a greater hunger than belly?

Ad vos deinde transeo, quorum profunda et insatiabilis gula hinc maria scrutatur, hinc terras, alia hamis, alia laqueis, alia retium variis generibus cum magno labore persequitur; nullis animalibus nisi ex fastidio pax est. Quantulum ex istis epulis, quae per tot comparatis manus, fesso voluptatibus ore libatis? Quantulum ex ista fera periculose capta dominus crudus ac nauseans gustat? Quantulum ex tot conchyliis tam longe advectis per istum stomachum inexplebilem labitur? Infelices, ecquid intellegitis maiorem vos famem habere quam ventrem?

Say these things to others, so that while you say them you may hear them yourself; write them, so that while you write you may read them, referring all things to conduct and to the quieting of the madness of the passions. Study, not to know something more, but to know it better. Farewell.

Haec aliis dic, ut dum dicis, audias ipse; scribe, ut dum scribis, legas, omnia ad mores et ad sedandam rabiem adfectuum referens. Stude, non ut plus aliquid scias, sed ut melius. Vale.

Who can doubt, my Lucilius, that it is the gift of the immortal gods that we live, but of philosophy that we live well? And so it would be held for certain that we owe more to philosophy than to the gods — by as much as a good life is a greater benefit than life — were it not that the gods themselves bestowed philosophy. The knowledge of it they gave to none, the capacity for it to all.

Quis dubitare, mi Lucili, potest, quin deorum immortalium munus sit quod vivimus, philosophiae quod bene vivimus? Itaque tanto plus huic nos debere quam dis, quanto maius beneficium est bona vita quam vita, pro certo haberetur, nisi ipsam philosophiam di tribuissent. Cuius scientiam nulli dederunt, facultatem omnibus.

For if they had made this too a common good, and we were born already wise, wisdom would have lost what is best in it: that it is not among the things of chance. For now this is what is precious and magnificent in it — that it does not come by accident, that each man owes it to himself, that it is not sought from another. What would you have to look up to in philosophy, if it were a thing handed out as a favor?

Nam si hanc quoque bonum vulgare fecissent et prudentes nasceremur, sapientia quod in se optimum habet, perdidisset: inter fortuita non esse. Nunc enim hoc in illa pretiosum atque magnificum est, quod non obvenit, quod illam sibi quisque debet, quod non ab alio petitur. Quid haberes quod in philosophia suspiceres, si beneficiaria res esset?

Her one work is to find the truth about things divine and human. From her religion never departs, nor piety, nor justice, nor all that other retinue of the virtues linked together and cohering among themselves. She has taught men to worship things divine, to hold dear things human, and that with the gods lies command, among men fellowship. This fellowship remained inviolate for a while, before avarice tore the partnership apart and became the cause of poverty even for those whom it had made most rich. For they ceased to possess all things, once they wished to possess their own.

Huius opus unum est de divinis humanisque verum invenire. Ab hac numquam recedit religio, pietas, iustitia et omnis alius comitatus virtutum consertarum et inter se cohaerentium. Haec docuit colere divina, humana diligere, et penes deos imperium esse, inter homines consortium. Quod aliquandiu inviolatum mansit, antequam societatem avaritia distraxit et paupertatis causa etiam is, quos fecit locupletissimos, fuit. Desierunt enim omnia possidere, dum volunt propria.

But the first of mortals, and those born of them, followed nature uncorrupted; they had one and the same leader and law, entrusted to the judgment of a better man. For it is nature’s way to put the worse under the better. Among the dumb herds, indeed, either the largest bodies preside or the most vehement. It is not the degenerate bull that leads the herd, but the one that has beaten the other males in size and brawn. The tallest leads the herd of elephants; among men the best stands for the highest. And so a ruler was chosen for his mind, and therefore the greatest happiness belonged to those nations in which none could be more powerful unless he were better. For he can safely do as much as he wills who thinks he can do only what he ought.

Sed primi mortalium quique ex his geniti naturam incorrupti sequebantur, eundem habebant et ducem et legem, commissi melioris arbitrio. Naturae est enim potioribus deteriora summittere. Mutis quidem gregibus aut maxima corpora praesunt aut vehcmentissima vehementissima. Non praecedit armenta degener taurus, sed qui magnitudine ac toris ceteros mares vicit. Elephantorum gregem excelsissimus ducit; inter homines pro summo est optimum. Animo itaque rector eligebatur, ideoque summa felicitas erat gentium, in quibus non poterat potentior esse nisi melior. Tuto enim quantum vult potest, qui se nisi quod debet non putat posse.

In that age, then, which they call golden, Posidonius judges that the kingship lay with the wise. They kept hands in check and protected the weaker from the stronger; they urged and dissuaded, and pointed out the useful and the useless. Their foresight saw to it that their people lacked nothing, their fortitude warded off dangers, their beneficence enlarged and adorned their subjects. To command was a duty, not a sovereignty. None tried out how much he could do against those through whom he had begun to have power; nor had anyone either the mind for injury or a cause for it, since the good ruler was well obeyed, and a king could threaten nothing greater against those who disobeyed than that they should depart from his kingdom.

Illo ergo saeculo, quod aureum perhibent, penes sapientes fuisse regnum Posidonius iudicat. Hi continebant manus et infirmiorem a validioribus tuebantur, suadebant dissuadebantque et utilia atque inutilia monstrabant. Horum prudentia ne quid deesset suis providebat, fortitudo pericula arcebat, beneficentia augebat ornabatque subiectos. Officium erat imperare, non regnum. Nemo quantum posset, adversus eos experiebatur, per quos coeperat posse, nec erat cuiquam aut animus in iniuriam aut causa, cum bene imperanti bene pareretur nihilque rex maius minari male parentibus posset, quam ut abirent e regno.

But after, as vices crept in, kingdoms turned into tyrannies, there began to be need of laws; and these too, in the beginning, the wise men brought forward. Solon, who founded Athens on equal justice, was among the Seven famed for wisdom. Had the same age borne Lycurgus, he would have been added as an eighth to that sacred number. The laws of Zaleucus and Charondas are praised. These men learned the laws they would lay down for Sicily, then flourishing, and for Greece throughout Italy, not in the forum nor in the chamber of the jurisconsults, but in that silent and holy retreat of Pythagoras.

Sed postquam subrepentibus vitiis in tyrannidem regna conversa sunt, opus esse legibus coepit, quas et ipsas inter initia tulere sapientes. Solon qui Athenas aequo iure fundavit, inter septem fuit sapientia notos. Lycurgum si eadem aetas tulisset, sacro illi numero accessisset octavus. Zaleuci leges Charondaeque laudantur. Hi non in foro nec in consultorum atrio, sed in Pythagorae tacito illo sanctoque secessu didicerunt iura, quae florenti tunc Siciliae et per Italiam Graeciae ponerent.

So far I agree with Posidonius. But that the arts which daily life uses were invented by philosophy — that I will not grant, nor claim for her the glory of the workshop. "She," he says, "taught men, scattered and sheltered either in caves or in some dug-out rock or in the hollow trunk of an eaten-out tree, to build themselves roofs." But I judge that philosophy no more devised these contrivances of roofs rising over roofs and cities pressing upon cities than she did the fishponds enclosed for this — that the gullet should not face the peril of storms, and that, however fiercely the sea raged, luxury should have its own harbors in which to fatten its sorted shoals of fish.

Hactenus Posidonio adsentior; artes quidem a philosophia inventas, quibus in cotidiano vita utitur, non concesserim nec illi fabricae adseram gloriam. Illa, inquit, sparsos et aut cavis tectos aut aliqua rupe suffossa aut exesae arboris trunco docuit tecta moliri. Ego vero philosophiam iudico non magis excogitasse has machinationes tectorum supra tecta surgentium et urbium urbes prementium quam vivaria piscium in hoc clausa, ut tempestatum periculum non adiret gula et quamvis acerrime pelago saeviente haberet luxuria portus suos, in quibus distinctos piscium greges saginaret.

What do you say? Philosophy taught men to have a key and a lock? What was that but to give the signal for avarice? Did philosophy raise these overhanging roofs, so perilous to those who dwell beneath them? For it was too little to be sheltered by chance materials and to find oneself, without art and without difficulty, some natural refuge. Believe me, that age was happy before architects, before tilers.

Quid ais? Philosophia homines docuit habere clavem et seram? Quid aliud erat avaritiae signum dare? Philosophia haec cum tanto habitantium periculo inmincntia inminentia tecta suspendit? Parum enim erat fortuitis tegi et sine arte et sine difficultate naturale invenire sibi aliquod receptaculum. Mihi crede, felix illud saeculum ante architectus fuit, ante tectores.

For the first men split the cleavable wood with wedges.

Nam primi cuneis scindebant fissile lignum.

With branches packed close and foliage heaped and laid on a slope there was a run-off for the rains, however great. Under such roofs they dwelt, but free of care. Thatch covered free men; under marble and gold dwells slavery. In this too I dissent from Posidonius, that he judges the smith’s iron tools to have been devised by wise men.

Spissatis ramalibus ac fronde congesta et in proclive disposita decursus imbribus quamvis magnis erat. Sub his tectis habitavere, sed securi. Culmus liberos texit, sub marmore atque auro servitus habitat. In illo quoque dissentio a Posidonio, quod ferramenta fabrilia excogitata a sapientibus viris iudicat.

Then to snare wild beasts in nooses, and to deceive with birdlime, was found, and to ring great glades about with hounds.

Tunc laqueis captare feras et fallere visco Inventum et magnos canibus circumdare saltus.

In this too I dissent — that wise men were those who discovered the mines of iron and bronze, when the earth, scorched by the burning of the forests, poured out from its surface the melted veins of metal that lay there. Such things are found by such men as cultivate them.

In hoc quoque dissentio, sapientes fuisse qui ferri metalla et aeris invenerint, cum incendio silvarum adusta tellus in summo venas iacentis liquefactas fudisset; ista tales inveniunt, quales colunt.

Nor does that question seem to me as subtle as it does to Posidonius: whether the hammer or the tongs first came into use. Both were invented by someone of quick and sharp wit, not great or lofty, and so was whatever else is to be sought with the body bent and the mind looking at the ground. The wise man was simple in his way of living — why not? Since in this age too he would wish to be as unencumbered as possible.

Ne illa quidem tam suptilis mihi quaestio videtur quam Posidonio, utrum malleus in usu esse prius an forcipes coeperint. Utraque invenit aliquis excitati ingenii, acuti, non magni nec elati, et quicquid aliud corpore incurvato et animo humum spectante quaerendum est. Sapiens facilis victu fuit, quidni? Cum hoc quoque saeculo esse quam expeditissimus cupiat.

How, I ask you, does it fit together that you should admire both Diogenes and Daedalus? Which of these seems to you wise? The one who contrived the saw, or the one who, when he had seen a boy drinking water from his hollow hand, at once broke and threw away the cup he took from his wallet, with this rebuke of himself: "How long, a fool, have I kept superfluous baggage!" — the man who folded himself up in his jar and slept in it?

Quomodo, oro te, convenit, ut et Diogenen mireris et Daedalum? Uter ex his sapiens tibi videtur? Qui serram commentus est, an ille qui cum vidisset puerum cava manu bibentem aquam, fregit protinus exemptum e perula calicem cum hac obiurgatione sui: quamdiu homo stultus supervacuas sarcinas habui! qui se conplicuit in dolio et in eo cubitavit?

Today which, in the end, do you think the wiser: the man who found out how to force saffron to an immense height through hidden pipes, who fills or empties channels with a sudden rush of water, and so fits together the revolving panels of dining-room ceilings that one face follows after another, and the roof changes as often as the courses — or the one who shows both to others and to himself how nature has laid on us nothing hard or difficult, that we can dwell without a marble-worker and a smith, that we can be clothed without traffic in silks, that we can have what is necessary for our use, if we are content with what the earth has set upon its surface? If the human race would hear him, it would know that a cook is as superfluous to it as a soldier.

Hodie utrum tandem sapientiorem putas, qui invenit quemadmodum in inmensam altitudinem crocum latentibus fistulis exprimat, qui euripos subito aquarum impetu implet aut siccat et versatilia cenationum laquearia ita coagmentat, ut subinde alia facies atque alia succedat et totiens tecta quotiens fericula mutentur, an eum, qui et aliis et sibi hoc monstrat, quam nihil nobis natura durum ac difficile imperaverit, posse nos habitare sine marmorario ac fabro, posse nos vestitos esse sine commercio sericorum, posse nos habere usibus nostris necessaria, si contenti fuerimus iis quae terra posuit in summo? Quem si audire humanum genus voluerit, tam supervacuum sciet sibi cocum esse quam militem.

Those were wise men, or at least like the wise, for whom the care of the body was simple. Necessities cost simple care; it is for delicacies that men labor. You will not want craftsmen; follow nature. She did not wish us to be harried. For whatever she compelled us to, she equipped us for. Cold is unbearable to the naked body. What then? Cannot the skins of wild beasts and of other animals defend us from cold well enough and abundantly? Do not very many nations cover their bodies with the bark of trees? Are not the feathers of birds sewn together for use as clothing? Even today, does not a great part of the Scythians clothe themselves in the hides of foxes and mice, which are soft to the touch and impenetrable to the winds?

Illi sapientes fuerunt aut certe sapientibus similes, quibus expedita erat tutela corporis. Simplici cura constant necessaria; in delicias laboratur. Non desiderabis artifices; sequere naturam. Illa noluit esse districtos. Ad quaecumque nos cogebat, instruxit. Frigus intolerabilest corpori nudo. Quid ergo? Non pelles ferarum et aliorum animalium a frigore satis abundeque defendere queunt? Non corticibus arborum pleraeque gentes tegunt corpora? Non avium plumae in usum vestis conseruntur? Non hodieque magna Scytharum pars tergis vulpium induitur ac murum, quae tactu mollia et inpenetrabilia ventis sunt?

Yet there is need to drive off the heat of the summer sun with a thicker shade. What then? Has not antiquity given many places which, hollowed out either by the wrong of time or by some other chance, have receded into a cave? What then? Have not men of any kind woven a hut of twigs with their hand and daubed it with cheap mud, then covered the top with stubble and other woodland stuff, and passed the winter secure, the rains sliding off the slopes? What then? Do not the Syrtic nations lie hidden underground, and all those for whom, because of the excessive heats of the sun, no covering is solid enough to repel the heat except the parched ground itself?

Opus est tamen calorem solis aestivi umbra crassiore propellere. Quid ergo? Non vetustas multa dedit loca, quae vel iniuria temporis vel alio quolibet casu excavata in specum recesserunt? Quid ergo? Non quilibet virgeam cratera texuerunt manu et vili obliverunt luto, deinde stipula aliisque silvestribus operuere fastigium, et pluviis per devexa labentibus hiemem transiere securi? Quid ergo? Non in defosso latent Syrticae gentes quibusque propter nimios solis ardores nullum tegimentum satis repellendis caloribus solidum est nisi ipsa arens humus?

Nature was not so hostile that, while she gave to all other animals an easy passage of life, man alone could not live without so many arts. None of these things was laid on us by her, nothing to be sought with toil, that life might be drawn out. We were born to things ready at hand; it is we who, out of disdain for what is easy, have made all things hard for ourselves. Roofs and coverings and the warming of bodies and food, and what are now made a vast business, were at hand, free, and obtainable by light work. For the measure of all was according to need; it is we who have made those things precious, we who made them marvelous, we who made them things to be hunted out with great and many arts.

Non fuit tam inimica natura, ut, cum omnibus aliis animalibus facilem actum vitae daret, homo solus non posset sine tot artibus vivere. Nihil horum ab illa nobis imperatum est, nihil aegre quaerendum, ut possit vita produci. Ad parata nati sumus; nos omnia nobis difficilia facilium fastidio fecimus. Tecta tegimentaque et fomenta corporum et cibi et quae nunc ingens negotium facta sunt, obvia erant et gratuita et opera levi parabilia. Modus enim omnium prout necessitas erat; nos ista pretiosa, nos mira, nos magnis multisque conquirenda artibus fecimus.

Nature suffices for what she demands. From nature luxury has revolted, which daily incites itself and grows through so many ages and aids the vices with its ingenuity. First it began to crave the superfluous, then the contrary, last of all it consigned the mind to the body and bade it serve the body’s lust. All those arts by which the city is bustled about or made to din do the body’s business — for which once all things were furnished as to a slave, now are procured as to a master. And so here are the workshops of weavers, here of smiths, here the kitchens of perfumers, here the schools of those teaching soft motions of the body and soft, broken songs. For that natural measure has withdrawn, which limited desires by necessary means; now to want only as much as is enough is a mark of rusticity and wretchedness.

Sufficit ad id natura, quod poscit. A natura luxuria descivit, quae cotidie se ipsa incitat et tot saeculis crescit et ingenio adiuvat vitia. Primo supervacua coepit concupiscere, inde contraria, novissime animum corpori addixit et illius deservire libidini iussit. Omnes istae artes, quibus aut circitatur civitas aut strepit, corporis negotium gerunt, cui omnia olim tamquam servo praestabantur, nunc tamquam domino parantur. Itaque hinc textorum, hinc fabrorum officinae sunt, hinc odores coquentium, hinc mollitia molles corporis motus docentium mollesque cantus et infractos. Recessit enim ille naturalis modus desideria ope necessaria finiens; iam rusticitatis et miseriae est velle, quantum sat est.

The warp is bound to the beam; the reed parts the threads; between, the woof is inserted by the sharp shuttles, which the notched teeth of the broad comb beat home.

Tela iugo vincta est, stamen secernit harundo, Inseritur medium radiis subtemen acutis, Quod lato paviunt insecti pectine dentes.

Then he passes to the farmers, and no less eloquently describes the ground cut open by the plough and gone over a second time, so that the loosened earth may lie more open to the roots; then the seeds scattered, and the weeds gathered by hand, lest anything chance-grown and wild should spring up to kill the crop. This too, he says, is the work of wise men — as though even now the tillers of fields did not constantly find new methods by which fertility is increased.

Transit deinde ad agricolas nec minus facunde describit proscissum aratro solum et iteratum, quo solutior terra facilius pateat radicibus, tunc sparsa semina et collectas manu herbas, ne quid fortuitum et agreste succrescat, quod necet segetem. Hoc quoque opus ait esse sapientium, tamquam non nunc quoque plurima cultores agrorum nova inveniant, per quae fertilitas augeatur.

Then, not content with these arts, he sends the wise man down into the mill. For he tells how, imitating the nature of things, he began to make bread. "The grain," he says, "taken into the mouth, the hardness of the teeth, meeting upon it, breaks; and whatever falls out the tongue refers back to the same teeth; then it is moistened, that it may pass more easily down the slippery throat; when it has reached the belly, it is digested by its even heat, and then at last passes into the body."

Deinde non est contentus his artibus, sed in pistrinum sapientem summittit. Narrat enim quemadmodum rerum naturam imitatus panem coeperit facere. Receptas, inquit, in os fruges concurrens inter se duritia dentium frangit, et quicquid excidit, ad eosdem dentes lingua refertur; tunc vero miscetur, ut facilius per fauces lubricas transeat. Cum pervenit in ventrem, aequali eius fervore concoquitur, tunc demum corpori accedit.

Someone, following this model, laid a rough stone upon a rough one, in the likeness of teeth, of which one part, immovable, awaits the motion of the other; then by the friction of both the grains are broken and ground again and again, until, frequently rubbed, they are reduced to fineness. Then he sprinkled the flour with water and, by constant working, subdued and kneaded the bread, which first the hot ash and the burning crock baked through, then ovens, discovered little by little, and other kinds whose heat would serve at command. It was not far short of his saying that the cobbler’s craft too was invented by the wise.

Hoc aliquis secutus exemplar lapidem asperum aspero inposuit ad similitudinem dentium, quorum pars immobilis motum alterius exspectat; deinde utriusque attritu grana franguntur et saepius regeruntur, donec ad minutiam frequenter trita redigantur. Tum farinam aqua sparsit et adsidua tractatione perdomuit unxitque panem, quem primo cinis calidus et fervens testa percoxit, deinde fumi paulatim reperti et alia genera, quorum fervor serviret arbitrio. Non multum afuit, quin sutrinum quoque inventum a sapientibus diceret.

All these things reason indeed devised, but not right reason. For they are the inventions of man, not of the wise man — as much so, by Hercules, as the ships in which we cross rivers and seas, with sails fitted to catch the force of the winds and rudders added at the stern to twist the ship’s course this way and that. The example was drawn from fishes, which are steered by the tail and, with its light movement to either side, bend their speed.

Omnia ista ratio quidem, sed non recta ratio commenta est. Hominis enim, non sapientis inventa sunt, tam mehercules quam navigia, quibus amnes quibusque maria transimus aptatis ad excipiendum ventorum impetum velis et additis a tergo gubernaculis, quae huc atque illuc cursum navigii torqueant Exemplum a piscibus tractum est, qui cauda reguntur et levi eius in utrumque momento velocitatem suam flectunt.

"All these things," he says, "the wise man did indeed invent; but as too small for him to handle himself, he gave them over to meaner servants." On the contrary, these were thought out by none other than those by whom they are tended even today. Certain things we know to have come forth only within our own memory — such as the use of window-panes, which transmit a clear light through transparent material; such as the suspended floors of baths and the pipes set into the walls, through which the heat was carried round to warm the lowest and the highest parts alike. Why speak of the marbles with which temples and houses gleam? Why of the masses of stone shaped into the round and smooth, with which we hold up porticoes and roofs capacious enough for whole peoples? Why of the shorthand signs by which a speech, however rapid, is taken down, and the hand follows the speed of the tongue? These are the contrivances of the cheapest slaves.

Omnia, inquit, haec sapiens quidem invenit; sed minora quam ut ipse tractaret, sordidioribus ministris dedit. Immo non aliis excogitata ista sunt quam quibus hodieque curantur. Quaedam nostra demum prodisse memoria scimus, ut speculariorum usum perlucente testa clarum transmittentium lumen, ut suspensuras balneorum et inpressos parietibus tubos, per quos circumfunderetur calor, qui ima simul ac summa foveret aequaliter. Quid loquar marmora, quibus templa, quibus domus fulgent? Quid lapideas moles in rotundum ac leve formatas, quibus porticus et capacia populorum tecta suscipimus? Quid verborum notas, quibus quamvis citata excipitur oratio et celeritatem linguae manus sequitur? Vilissimorum mancipiorum ista commenta sunt;

Wisdom sits more deeply, and does not teach the hands; she is the mistress of minds. Do you wish to know what she has dug out, what she has accomplished? Not the graceful motions of the body, nor the various songs through trumpet and flute, by which the breath, received, is formed into voice, whether at its going out or its passing through. She does not forge arms or walls or things useful for war; she favors peace and calls the human race to concord.

sapientia altius sedet nec manus edocet, animorum magistra est. Vis scire, quid illa eruerit, quid effecerit? Non decores corporis motus nec varios per tubam ac tibiam cantus, quibus exceptus spiritus aut in exitu aut in transitu formatur in vocem. Non arma nec muros nec bello utilia molitur, paci favet et genus humanum ad concordiam vocat.

She is not, I say, a maker of instruments for necessary uses. Why do you assign her things so small? You see the artificer of life. The other arts, indeed, she holds under her dominion. For he to whom life belongs is served also by the things that adorn life; yet she tends toward the happy state, leads thither, opens the ways thither.

Non est, inquam, instrumentorum ad usus necessarios opifex. Quid illi tam parvola adsignas? Artificem vides vitae. Alias quidem artes sub dominio habet. Nam cui vita, illi vitam ornantia quoque serviunt; ceterum ad beatum statum tendit, illo ducit, illo vias aperit.

She shows what things are evil, what only seem so; she strips vanity from minds, gives a solid greatness, but represses the greatness that is inflated and showy out of emptiness, and does not let the difference between the great and the swollen go unknown; she hands down the knowledge of the whole of nature and of her own. She declares what the gods are and of what kind, what the powers below, what the lares and the genii, what the souls made perpetual into the second order of divinities, where they abide, what they do, what they can, what they will. These are her rites of initiation, through which is unbarred not a parish shrine but the vast temple of all the gods — the world itself, whose true images and true faces she has brought forth for minds to discern. For sight is too dull for spectacles so great.

Quae sint mala, quae videantur ostendit, vanitatem exuit mentibus, dat magnitudinem solidam, inflatam vero et ex inani speciosam reprimit, nec ignorari sinit inter magna quid intersit et tumida, totius naturae notitiam ac suae tradit. Quid sint di qualesque declarat, quid inferi, quid lares et genii, quid in secundam numinum formam animae perpetuatae, ubi consistunt, quid agant, quid possint, quid velint. Haec eius initiamenta sunt, per quae non municipale sacrum, sed ingens deorum omnium templum, mundus ipse reseratur, cuius vera simulacra verasque facies cernendas mentibus protulit. Nam ad spectacula tam magna hebes visus est.

Then she returns to the beginnings of things, and to the eternal reason set into the whole, and the force of all the seeds shaping each single thing in its own form. Then she began to inquire about the soul — whence it is, where, how long, into how many parts divided. Then from bodies she carried herself over to the incorporeal, and shook out the truth and its proofs; after this, how the ambiguities of life or of speech might be distinguished — for in each the false are mixed with the true.

Ad initia deinde rerum redit aeternamque rationem toti inditam et vim omnium seminum singula proprie figurantem. Tum de animo coepit inquirere, unde esset, ubi, quamdiu, in quot membra divisus Deinde a corporibus se ad incorporalia transtulit veritatemque et argumenta eius excussit, post haec quemadmodum discernerentur vitae aut vocis ambigua, in utraque enim falsa veris inmixta sunt.

The wise man did not, I say, withdraw himself, as Posidonius thinks, from these arts, but rather never came to them at all. For he would have judged nothing worth inventing that he was not going to judge worth perpetual use. He would not take up what must be laid down.

Non abduxit, inquam, se, ut Posidonio videtur, ab istis artibus sapiens, sed ad illas omnino non venit. Nihil enim dignum inventu iudicasset, quod non erat dignum perpetuo usu iudicaturus. Ponenda non sumeret.

"Anacharsis," he says, "invented the potter’s wheel, by whose turning vessels are shaped." Then, because in Homer the potter’s wheel is found, they prefer the verses to be thought false rather than the story. I myself neither contend that Anacharsis was the author of this thing; and, if he was, a wise man indeed invented it — but not as a wise man, just as wise men do many things in their capacity as men, not as wise men. Suppose the wise man to be very swift: he will outrun all in his capacity as swift, not as wise. I should like to show Posidonius a glass-blower, who shapes glass by his breath into many forms that could scarcely be fashioned by a careful hand. These things have been invented since we ceased to invent wisdom.

Anacharsis, inquit, invenit rotam figuli, cuius circuitu vasa formantur. Deinde quia apud Homerum invenitur figuli rota, malunt videri versus falsos esse quam fabulam. Ego nec Anacharsim auctorem huius rei fuisse contendo et, si fuit, sapiens quidem hoc invenit, sed non tamquam sapiens, sicut multa sapientes faciunt, qua homines sunt, non qua sapientes. Puta velocissimum esse sapientem; cursu omnes anteibit, qua velox est, non qua sapiens. Cuperem Posidonio aliquem vitrearium ostendere, qui spiritu vitrum in habitus plurimos format, qui vix diligenti manu effingerentur. Haec inventa sunt, postquam sapientiam invenire desîmus.

"Democritus," he says, "is said to have invented the arch, so that the curve of stones, gradually inclined, should be bound together by a keystone in the middle." This I shall call false; for necessarily before Democritus there were both bridges and gates, of which the upper parts are generally curved.

Democritus, inquit, invenisse dicitur fornicem, ut lapidum curvatura paulatim inclinatorum medio saxo alligaretur. Hoc dicam falsum esse; necesse est enim ante Democritum et pontes et portas fuisse, quarum fere summa curvantur.

It has slipped your minds, moreover, that the same Democritus discovered how ivory might be softened, how a boiled pebble might be turned into an emerald — the process by which, even today, found stones suitable for this are colored by boiling. Though a wise man may have invented these things, he did not invent them as a wise man; for he does many things which we see done either equally well or more skillfully and with more practice by the most ignorant.

Excidit porro vobis eundem Democritum invenisse, quemadmodum ebur molliretur, quemadmodum decoctus calculus in zmaragdum converteretur, qua hodieque coctum inventi lapides in hoc utiles colorantur. Ista sapiens licet invenerit, non qua sapiens erat, invenit; multa enim facit, quae ab inprudentissimis aut aeque fieri videmus aut peritius atque exercitatius.

What has the wise man searched out, what has he dragged into the light, you ask? First, the truth and nature, which he did not follow, like the other animals, with eyes slow toward things divine. Then the law of life, which he directed to the universal; and he taught not only to know the gods but to follow them, and to receive what befalls no otherwise than as things commanded. He forbade men to obey false opinions, and weighed by a true estimation how much each thing was worth. He condemned pleasures mixed with repentance, and praised goods that would always please, and made it plain that he is most happy who has no need of happiness, most powerful who has himself in his power.

Quid sapiens investigaverit, quid in lucem protraxerit, quaeris? Primum verum naturamque, quam non ut cetera animalia oculis secutus est tardis ad divina. Deinde vitae legem, quam ad universa derexit, nec nosse tantum sed sequi deos docuit et accidentia non aliter excipere quam imperata. Vetuit parere opinionibus falsis et quanti quidque esset, vera aestimatione perpendit. Damnavit mixtas paenitentia voluptates et bona semper placitum laudavit et palam fecit felicissimum esse cui felicitate non opus est, potentissimum esse qui se habet in potestate.

I am not speaking of that philosophy which set the citizen outside his country, the gods outside the world, which made a gift of virtue to pleasure, but of that which thinks nothing a good except what is honorable, which cannot be coaxed by the gifts either of man or of fortune, whose price is this: that it cannot be bought at a price. That this philosophy existed in that rude age, when the arts were still lacking and useful things were learned by use itself, I do not believe.

Non de ea philosophia loquor, quae civem extra patriam posuit, extra mundum deos, quae virtutem donavit voluptati, sed de illa, quae nullum bonum putat nisi quod honestum est, quae nec hominis nec fortunae muneribus deleniri potest, cuius hoc pretium est, non posse pretio capi. Hanc philosophiam fuisse illo rudi saeculo, quo adhuc artificia deerant et ipso usu discebantur utilia, non credo.

There followed fortunate times, when the benefits of nature lay open in the midst for common use, before avarice and luxury dissociated mortals and made them scatter from partnership to plunder. Those men were not wise, even if they did what is to be done by the wise.

Secutast fortunata tempora, cum in medio iacerent beneficia naturae promiscue utenda, antequam avaritia atque luxuria dissociavere mortales et ad rapinam ex consortio discurrere. Non erant illi sapientes viri, etiam si faciebant facienda sapientibus.

No tillers subdued the fields; it was not even right to mark or divide the plain with a boundary; men sought into the common store, and the earth herself, with none demanding, bore all things more freely.

Nulli subigebant arva coloni, Ne signare quidem aut partiri limite campum Fas erat; in medium quaerebant, ipsaque tellus Omnia liberius nullo poscente ferebat.

What is happier than that race of men? In common they enjoyed the nature of things; she sufficed, as a parent, so also as a guardian of all; this was the secure possession of public wealth. Why should I not call that the richest race of mortals, in which you could not find a poor man? Avarice broke in upon things best arranged, and, while it desired to set something apart and turn it to its own, made all things another’s and reduced itself from the immense into the narrow. Avarice brought in poverty, and by craving much lost all.

Quid hominum illo genere felicius? In commune rerum natura fruebantur; sufficiebat illa ut parens ita tutela omnium, haec erat publicarum opum secura possessio. Quidni ego illud locupletissimum mortalium genus dixerim, in quo pauperem invenire non posses? Inrupit in res optime positas avaritia et, dum seducere aliquid cupit atque in suum vertere, omnia fecit aliena et in angustum se ex inmenso redegit. Avaritia paupertatem intulit et multa concupiscendo omnia amisit.

And so, though it now try to repair what it lost, though it add fields to fields, driving out the neighbor either by price or by wrong, though it widen its estates to the extent of provinces and call a long journey through one’s own a possession, no extending of bounds will bring us back to the place from which we set out. When we have done all, we shall have much; the universe we once had.

Licet itaque nunc conetur reparare quod perdidit, licet agros agris adiciat vicinum vel pretio pellens vel iniuria, licet in provinciarum spatium rura dilatet et possessionem vocet per sua longam peregrinationem, nulla nos finium propagatio eo reducet unde discessimus. Cum omnia fecerimus, multum habebimus; universum habebamus.

The earth itself was more fertile untilled, and generous to the uses of peoples who did not plunder. Whatever nature had brought forth, it was a pleasure no less to have found it than to point out the find to another. Nor could anyone have either too much or too little; among men in concord it was divided. Not yet had the stronger laid hand on the weaker; not yet had the greedy man, by hiding what lay there for himself, shut out another even from necessities; the care for another was equal to that for oneself.

Terra ipsa fertilior erat inlaborata et in usus populorum non diripientium larga. Quidquid natura protulerat, id non minus invenisse quam inventum monstrare alteri voluptas erat. Nec ulli aut superesse poterat aut deesse; inter concordes dividebatur. Nondum valentior inposuerat infirmiori manum, nondum avarus abscondendo quod sibi iaceret, alium necessariis quoque excluserat; par erat alterius ac sui cura.

Arms were idle, and hands unstained by human blood had turned all their hatred upon wild beasts. Those men whom some thick grove had sheltered from the sun, who, safe in a cheap refuge against the savagery of winter or rain, lived beneath the foliage, passed their nights in calm, without a sigh. Anxiety tosses us in our purple and rouses us with the sharpest goads; but how soft a sleep the hard ground gave to them!

Arma cessabant incruentaeque humano sanguine manus odium omne in feras verterant. Illi quos aliquod nemus densum a sole protexerat, qui adversus saevitiam hiemis aut imbris vili receptaculo tuti sub fronde vivebant, placidas transigebant sine suspirio noctis. Sollicitudo nos in nostra purpura versat et acerrimis excitat stimulis; at quam mollem somnum illis dura tellus dabat!

No carved ceilings hung over them, but, as they lay in the open, the stars glided above, and the splendid spectacle of the nights, the firmament, was borne headlong, conducting in silence so great a work. By day as by night the prospects of this most beautiful house lay open to them. It was a delight to gaze at the constellations sinking from mid-heaven, and others again rising out of the hidden.

Non inpendebant caelata laquearia, sed in aperto iacentes sidera superlabebantur et insigne spectaculum noctium mundus in praeceps agebatur silentio tantum opus ducens. Tam interdiu illis quam nocte patebant prospectus huius pulcherrimae domus. Libebat intueri signa ex media caeli parte vergentia, rursus ex occulto alia surgentia.

Why should it not have delighted them to wander among marvels so widely scattered? But you tremble at every sound of your roofs, and among your paintings, if anything creaks, you flee thunderstruck. They had no houses the size of cities. The breath of air, the free draft moving through the open, and the light shade of a rock or tree, and clear springs and streams not fouled by work or pipe or any forced channel, but running of their own accord, and meadows lovely without art — among these a rustic dwelling, polished by a country hand. This was a house according to nature, in which it was a delight to live, fearing neither it nor for it; now a great part of our fear is our roofs.

Quidni iuvaret vagari inter tam late sparsa miracula? At vos ad omnem tectorum pavetis sonum et inter picturas vestras, si quid increpuit, fugitis adtoniti. Non habebant domos instar urbium. Spiritus ac liber inter aperta perflatus et levis umbra rupis aut arboris et perlucidi fontes rivique non opere nec fistula nec ullo coacto itinere obsolefacti, sed sponte currentes et prata sine arte formosa, inter haec agreste domicilium rustica politum manu. Haec erat secundum naturam domus, in qua libebat habitare nec ipsam nec pro ipsa timentem; nunc magna pars nostri metus tecta sunt.

But however excellent their life was, and free of fraud, they were not wise men, since that name is now for the greatest of works. Yet I would not deny that there were men of high spirit and, so to speak, fresh from the gods. For there is no doubt that the world, not yet worn out, brought forth better things. But just as the natural disposition was stronger in all, and readier for toils, so the talents were not in all brought to perfection. For nature does not give virtue; to become good is an art.

Sed quamvis egregia illis vita fuerit et carens fraude, non fuere sapientes, quando hoc iam in opere maximo nomen est. Non tamen negaverim fuisse alti spiritus viros et, ut ita dicam, a dis recentes. Neque enim dubium est, quin meliora mundus nondum effetus ediderit. Quemadmodum autem omnibus indoles fortior fuit et ad labores paratior, ita non erant ingenia omnibus consummata. Non enim dat natura virtutem; ars est bonum fieri.

They indeed did not seek gold or silver or translucent stones in the lowest dregs of the earth, and still spared even the dumb animals; so far were they from man killing man — not in anger, not in fear, but merely to look on. Not yet was their clothing embroidered, not yet was gold woven, nor as yet even dug up.

Illi quidem non aurum nec argentum nec perlucidos lapides in ima terrarum faece quaerebant parcebantque adhuc etiam mutis animalibus; tantum aberat ut homo hominem non iratus, non timens, tantum spectaturus occideret. Nondum vestis illis erat picta, nondum texebatur aurum, adhuc nec eruebatur.

What then is it? Through ignorance of things they were innocent. But there is a great difference whether one is unwilling to sin or does not know how. Justice was wanting to them, prudence was wanting, temperance and fortitude. To all these virtues their rude life had certain likenesses; but virtue does not fall to a soul except one trained and taught and brought, by constant exercise, to the highest. We are born for this, indeed, but without this; and even in the best, before you educate them, there is the matter of virtue, not virtue itself. Farewell.

Quid ergo est? Ignorantia rerum innocentes erant. Multum autem interest, utrum peccare aliquis nolit an nesciat. Deerat illis iustitia, deerat prudentia, deerat temperantia ac fortitudo. Omnibus his virtutibus habebat similia quaedam rudis vita; virtus non contingit animo nisi instituto et edocto et ad summum adsidua exercitatione perducto. Ad hoc quidem, sed sine hoc nascimur et in optimis quoque, antequam erudias, virtutis materia, non virtus est. Vale.

Our friend Liberalis is now downcast, at the news of the fire by which the colony of Lugdunum has been burned away. A disaster like this could move anyone, let alone a man most devoted to his native place. It has made him seek the firmness of his own mind, which, no doubt, he had trained against the things he thought could be feared. But that this evil, so unlooked-for and almost unheard-of, found him without fear I do not wonder, since it was without precedent. For fire has harassed many cities, but carried none away. Even where flame has been thrown by an enemy’s hand into the roofs, it fails in many places, and though it be stirred up again and again, rarely yet does it so feed on everything as to leave nothing to the sword. An earthquake too has scarcely ever been so grave and ruinous as to overturn whole towns. In short, never has a fire blazed so murderously upon any place that nothing was left for a second fire.

Liberalis noster nunc tristis est nuntiato incendio, quo Lugdunensis colonia exusta est. Movere hic casus quemlibet posset, nedum hominem patriae suae amantissimum. Quae res effecit, ut firmitatem animi sui quaerat, quam videlicet ad ea, quae timeri posse putabat, exercuit. Hoc vero tam inopinatum malum et paene inauditum non miror si sine metu fuit, cum esset sine exemplo. Multas enim civitates incendium vexavit, nullam abstulit. Nam etiam ubi hostili manu in tecta ignis inmissus est, multis locis deficit, et quamvis subinde excitetur, raro tamen sic cuncta depascitur, ut nihil ferro relinquat. Terrarum quoque vix umquam tam gravis et perniciosus fuit motus, ut tota oppida everteret. Numquam denique tam infestum ulli exarsit incendium, ut nihil alteri superesset incendio.

So many most beautiful works, any one of which could make a single city famous, one night laid low; and in such deep peace there happened what cannot be feared even in war. Who would believe this? Everywhere, with the years at rest, with security spread over the whole earth, Lugdunum, which used to be pointed out in Gaul, is looked for. Fortune has let all those whom she struck in public dread beforehand what they were to suffer. Nothing great has been without some interval for its fall; in this case one night came between the greatest city and none at all. In short, I am longer in telling you it perished than it took to perish.

Tot pulcherrima opera, quae singula inlustrare urbes singulas possent, una nox stravit, et in tanta pace quantum ne bello quidem timeri potest accidit. Quis hoc credat? Ubique annis quiescentibus, cum toto orbe terrarum diffusa securitas sit, Lugudunum, quod ostendebatur in Gallia, quaeritur. Omnibus fortuna, quos publice adflixit, quod passuri erant, timere permisit. Nulla res magna non aliquod habuit ruinae suae spatium; in hac una nox interfuit inter urbem maximam et nullam. Denique diutius illam tibi perisse quam perit narro.

All this bends the spirit of our Liberalis, firm and erect though it is against his own affairs. And not without cause was he shaken; the unexpected weighs the more. Novelty adds weight to calamities, and there is no mortal who has not grieved the more for what he also wondered at.

Haec omnia Liberalis nostri adfectum inclinant adversus sua firmum et erectum. Nec sine causa concussus est; inexpectata plus adgravant; novitas adicit calamitatibus pondus, nec quisquam mortalium non magis quod etiam miratus est, doluit.

Therefore nothing ought to be unforeseen by us. The mind must be sent ahead into all things, and we must reckon not what is wont to happen, but whatever can happen. For what is there that fortune, when she wills, does not drag down from its most flourishing state? What does she not assail and shake the more, the more splendidly it shines? What is steep or difficult for her?

Ideo nihil nobis inprovisum esse debet. In omnia praemittendus animus cogitandumque non quidquid solet, sed quicquid potest fieri. Quid enim est, quod non fortuna, cum voluit, ex florentissimo detrahat? Quod non eo magis adgrediatur et quatiat, quo speciosius fulget? Quid illi arduum quidve difficile est?

She does not always come by one road, nor even the whole of it: now she summons our own hands against us, now, content with her own strength, she finds perils without an author. No time is exempt; in the midst of pleasures themselves the causes of pain arise. War rises up in the midst of peace, and the supports of security pass over into fear; out of a friend an enemy, out of an ally a foe. The summer calm is driven into sudden storms, greater than the storms of winter. Without an enemy we suffer an enemy’s blows, and, if other causes fail, excessive good fortune finds for itself the causes of disaster. Disease invades the most temperate, consumption the strongest, punishment the most innocent, tumult the most retired. Chance picks out something new, by which to thrust its force upon those who have, as it were, forgotten it.

Non una via semper, ne tota quidem incurrit, modo nostras in nos manus advocat, modo suis contenta viribus invenit pericula sine auctore. Nullum tempus exceptum est; in ipsis voluptatibus causae doloris oriuntur. Bellum in media pace consurgit et auxilia securitatis in metum transeunt; ex amico inimicus, hostis ex socio. In subitas tempestates hibernisque maiores agitur aestiva tranquillitas. Sine hoste patimur hostilia, et cladis causas, si alia deficiunt, nimia sibi felicitas invenit. Invadit temperantissimos morbus, validissimos phthisis, innocentissimos poena, secretissimos tumultus. Eligit aliquid novi casus, per quod velut oblitis vires suas ingerat.

Whatever a long succession has built up with much toil and much indulgence of the gods, a single day scatters and disperses. He who has named a day has granted a long delay to evils that hasten; an hour, a moment of time, suffices to overturn empires. It would be some comfort for our weakness and our affairs, if all things perished as slowly as they come to be; but as it is, increases come out slowly, the rush is toward loss.

Quidquid longa series multis laboribus, multa deum indulgentia struxit, id unus dies spargit ac dissipat. Longam moram dedit malis properantibus, qui diem dixit; hora momentumque temporis evertendis imperiis sufficit. Esset aliquod inbecillitatis nostrae solacium rerumque nostrarum, si tam tarde perirent cuncta quam fiunt; nunc incrementa lente exeunt, festinatur in damnum.

Nothing is stable, in private or in public; the fates of men, as of cities, roll round. Amid the most placid things terror springs up, and, with no causes of tumult outside, evils break out from where they were least expected. Kingdoms that had stood through civil wars, and through foreign ones, fall with none to push them. How few cities have carried their good fortune through to the end? All things, therefore, must be thought of, and the mind made firm against whatever can happen.

Nihil privatim, nihil publice stabile est; tam hominum quam urbium fata volvuntur. Inter placidissima terror existit nihilque extra tumultuantibus causis mala, unde minime exspectabantur, erumpunt. Quae domesticis bellis steterant regna, quae externis, inpellente nullo ruunt. Quota quaeque felicitatem civitas pertulit? Cogitanda ergo sunt omnia et animus adversus ea, quae possunt evenire, firmandus.

Meditate on exiles, on tortures, diseases, wars, shipwrecks. Chance can tear you from your country, your country from you; it can drive you off into deserts; this very place, in which the crowd is stifled, can become a desert. Let the whole condition of the human lot be set before our eyes, and let us anticipate in the mind not how much frequently happens, but how much at most can happen, if we do not wish to be overwhelmed and to be stunned by those unaccustomed things as if they were new; fortune must be thought of to the full.

Exilia, tormenta morbi, bella, naufragia meditare. Potest te patriae, potest patriam tibi casus eripere, potest te in solitudines abigere, potest hoc ipsum, in quo turba suffocatur, fieri solitudo. Tota ante oculos sortis humanae condicio ponatur, nec quantum frequenter evenit, sed quantum plurimum potest evenire, praesumamus animo, si nolumus opprimi nec illis inusitatis velut novis obstupefieri; in plenum cogitanda fortuna est.

How often have the cities of Asia, how often those of Achaia, fallen by a single tremor? How many towns in Syria, how many in Macedonia, have been swallowed up? How often has this disaster laid Cyprus waste? How often has Paphos collapsed upon itself? Often the destruction of whole cities has been reported to us — and we, among whom such things are often reported, how small a part of all are we? Let us rise up, then, against the things of chance, and know that whatever befalls is not so great as it is bandied about by rumor.

Quotiens Asiae, quotiens Achaiae urbes uno tremore ceciderunt? Quot oppida in Syria, quot in Macedonia devorata sunt? Cypron quotiens vastavit haec clades? Quotiens in se Paphus corruit? Frequenter nobis nuntiati sunt totarum urbium interitus, et nos inter quos ista frequenter nuntiantur, quota pars omnium sumus? Consurgamus itaque adversus fortuita et quicquid inciderit, sciamus non esse tam magnum quam rumore iactetur.

A wealthy city burned, the ornament of the provinces in which it was both set and from which it stood apart, yet placed upon one — and that not a very broad — hill. Of all those cities which you now hear called magnificent and noble, time will erase even the traces. Do you not see how in Achaia the very foundations of the most famous cities have already been consumed, and nothing stands from which it might appear that they so much as existed?

Civitas arsit opulenta ornamentumque provinciarum, quibus et inserta erat et excepta, uni tamen inposita et huic non latissimo monti; omnium istarum civitatium, quas nunc magnificas ac nobiles audis, vestigia quoque tempus eradet. Non vides, quemadmodum in Achaia clarissimarum urbium iam fundamenta consumpta sint nec quicquam extet, ex quo appareat illas saltim fuisse?

Not only the works of hands fall, not only what human art and industry has set up does the day overturn; the ridges of mountains flow apart, whole regions have subsided, things that stood far from the sight of the sea are covered by the waves. The vast force of fires has eaten away the hills through which it glowed, and has brought down to the low what were once the highest peaks, the comforts of sailors and their watchtowers. The works of nature herself are harassed, and therefore we ought to bear with an even mind the destruction of cities.

Non tantum manu facta labuntur, nec tantum humana arte atque industria posita vertit dies; iuga montium diffluunt, totae desedere regiones, operta sunt fluctibus quae procul a conspectu maris stabant. Vasta vis ignium colles, per quos relucebat, erosit et quondam altissimos vertices, solacia navigandum ac speculas, ad humile deduxit. Ipsius naturae opera vexantur et ideo aequo animo ferre debemus urbium excidia.

They stand only to fall. This same end awaits them all — whether the inner force and the blasts, their way blocked, shake off the weight under which they are held; or the rush of torrents, vaster in the hidden depths, breaks through what stands in the way; or the violence of flames bursts the fabric of the soil; or age, from which nothing is safe, storms them bit by bit; or a heaviness of climate drives out the peoples, and decay corrupts the deserted places. To enumerate all the roads of the fates is long. This one thing I know: all the works of mortals are condemned to mortality; we live among things that will perish.

Casurae stant. Omnes hic exitus manet, sive interna vis flatusque praeclusa via violenti pondus, sub quo tenentur, excusserint, sive torrentium impetus in abdito vastior obstantia effregerit, sive flammarum violentia conpaginem soli ruperit, sive vetustas, a qua nihil tutum est, expugnaverit minutatim, sive gravitas caeli egesserit populos et situs deserta corruperit. Enumerare omnes fatorum vias longum est. Hoc unum scio: omnia mortalium opera mortalitate damnata sunt, inter peritura vivimus.

These, then, and consolations of this kind, I bring to our Liberalis, who burns with some incredible love of his native place — which has perhaps been consumed only that it may be raised up to something better. Often a wrong has made room for a greater fortune. Many things have fallen that they might rise higher. Timagenes, an enemy to the city’s prosperity, used to say that the fires at Rome were a grief to him for this one reason: that he knew better things would rise than had burned.

Haec ergo atque eiusmodi solacia admoveo Liberali nostro incredibili quodam patriae suae amore flagranti, quae fortasse consumpta est, ut in melius excitaretur. Saepe maiori fortunae locum fecit iniuria. Multa ceciderunt, ut altius surgerent. Timagenes felicitati urbis inimicus aiebat Romae sibi incendia ob hoc unum dolori esse, quod sciret meliora surrectura quam arsissent.

In this city too it is likely that all will vie to restore things greater and more secure than what they lost. May they be long-lasting and, under better auspices, founded for a longer age! For this colony is in the hundredth year from its origin, an age not even the utmost for a man. Led out by Plancus, it has grown strong by the convenience of its site to this throng of people; yet how many grievous disasters has it borne within the span of a human old age!

In hac quoque urbe veri simile est certaturos omnes, ut maiora certioraque quam amisere restituantur. Sint utinam diuturna et melioribus auspiciis in aevum longius condita! Nam huic coloniae ab origine sua centensimus annus est, aetas ne homini quidem extrema. A Planco deducta in hanc frequentiam loci opportunitate convaluit, quot tamen gravissimos casus intra spatium humanae senectutis tulit.

And so let the mind be formed for the understanding and endurance of its lot, and let it know that there is nothing fortune does not dare, that she has the same right against empires as against emperors, can do the same against cities as against men. None of this is to be resented. We have entered a world in which life is lived by these laws. Does it please you? Obey. Does it not please you? Depart, by whatever way you will. Be indignant if anything unjust has been ordained against you in particular; but if this necessity binds the highest and the lowest alike, be reconciled with fate, by which all things are dissolved.

Itaque formetur animus ad intellectum patientiamque sortis suae et sciat nihil inausum esse fortunae, adversus imperia illam idem habere iuris quod adversus imperantes, adversus urbes idem posse quod adversus homines. Nihil horum indignandum est. In eum intravimus mundum, in quo his legibus vivitur. Placet; pare. Non placet; quacumque vis, exi. Indignare, si quid in te iniqui proprie constitutum est; sed si haec summos imosque necessitas alligat, in gratiam cum fato revertere, a quo omnia resolvuntur.

There is no reason to measure us by tombs and by those monuments which, unequal, line the road; ash makes all equal. We are born unequal, we die equal. I say the same of cities as of cities’ inhabitants: Ardea was taken as much as Rome was. That founder of human law distinguished us neither by birth nor by the brilliance of names, except while we are alive. But when the end of mortals is reached, "Away," he says, "ambition! Let the law be one and the same for all things that press upon the earth." For the bearing of all things we are equal; no one is more fragile than another, no one more sure of his own tomorrow.

Non est quod nos tumulis metiaris et his monumentis, quae viam disparia praetexunt; aequat omnes cinis. Inpares nascimur, pares morimur. Idem de urbibus quod de urbium incolis dico: tam Ardea capta quam Roma est. Conditor ille iuris humani non natalibus nos nec nominum claritate distinxit, nisi dum sumus. Ubi vero ad finem mortalium ventum est, discede, inquit, ambitio! omnium, quae terram premunt, siremps lex esto. Ad omnia patienda pares sumus; nemo altero fragilior est, nemo in crastinum sui certior.

Alexander, king of the Macedonians, had begun to learn geometry — unhappy man, about to learn how tiny was the earth, of which he had seized the smallest part. So I say: unhappy for this, that he ought to have understood he bore a false surname. For who can be great in what is tiny? Those things that were taught were subtle, and to be learned by careful attention — not such as a frenzied man could take in, sending his thoughts beyond the ocean. "Teach me easy things," he said. To whom his teacher: "These things are the same for all, equally difficult."

Alexander Macedonum rex discere geometriam coeperat, infelix, sciturus, quam pusilla terra esset, ex qua minimum occupaverat. Ita dico: infelix ob hoc, quod intellegere debebat falsum se gerere cognomen. Quis enim esse magnus in pusillo potest? Erant illa, quae tradebantur, suptilia et diligenti intentione discenda, non quae perciperet vesanus homo et trans oceanum cogitationes suas mittens. Facilia, inquit, me doce. Cui praeceptor ista, inquit, omnibus eadem sunt, aeque difficilia.

Think that the nature of things says this: "Those things of which you complain are the same for all. I can give easier ones to none; but whoever wills shall make them easier for himself." How? By even-mindedness. You must both feel pain and thirst and hunger and grow old, if a longer stay among men falls to you, and fall sick and lose something and perish.

Hoc puta rerum naturam dicere: ista, de quibus querelis, omnibus eadem sunt. Nulli dare faciliora possum, sed quisquis volet, sibi ipse illa reddet faciliora. Quomodo? Aequanimitate. Et doleas oportet et sitias et esurias et senescas, si tibi longior contigerit inter homines mora, et aegrotes et perdas aliquid et pereas.

Yet there is no reason for you to believe those who din around you; none of these is an evil, nothing intolerable or hard. It is by consensus that they are a terror. You fear death as you fear ill-fame. But what is more foolish than a man fearing words? Elegantly our Demetrius is wont to say that the voices of the ignorant are to him in the same place as the wind broken from the belly. "For what does it matter to me," he says, "whether they sound from above or below?"

Non est tamen quod istis, qui te circumstrepunt, credas; nihil horum malum est, nihil intolerabile aut durum. Ex consensu istis metus est. Sic mortem times quomodo famam. Quid autem stultius homine verba metuente? Eleganter Demetrius noster solet dicere eodem loco sibi esse voces inperitorum, quo ventre redditos crepitus. Quid enim, inquit, mea, susum isti an deosum sonent?

What madness it is to fear being defamed by the defamed! As you dreaded ill-fame without cause, so too you dreaded those things which you would never fear, had not fame commanded it. Would a good man take any harm, scattered about with unjust rumors?

Quanta dementia est vereri, ne infameris ab infamibus? Quemadmodum famam extimuistis sine causa, sic et illa, quae numquam timeretis, nisi fama iussisset. Num quid detrimenti faceret vir bonus iniquis rumoribus sparsus?

Let not this harm even death in our eyes; it too has an ill repute. None of those who accuse it has tried it. Meanwhile it is rashness to condemn what you do not know. But this you do know: to how many it is useful, how many it frees from torments, want, complaints, punishments, weariness. We are in no one’s power, since death is in our own power. Farewell.

Ne morti quidem hoc apud nos noceat; et haec malam olitionem habet. Nemo eorum, qui illam accusant, expertus est. Interim temeritas est damnare, quod nescias. At illud scis, quam multis utilis sit, quam multos liberet tormentis, egestate, querellis, suppliciis, taedio. Non sumus in ullius potestate, cum mors in nostra potestate sit. Vale.

I think it will be agreed between you and me that external things are acquired for the body, that the body is cultivated in honor of the mind, and that in the mind there are ministering parts, through which we are moved and nourished, given to us for the sake of the ruling part itself. In this ruling part there is something irrational, and something rational. The former serves the latter; the latter alone is what is referred to nothing else, but refers all things to itself. For that divine reason too is set over all things, itself under nothing; and this reason of ours is the same, since it is from that.

Puto, inter me teque conveniet externa corpori adquiri, corpus in honorem animi coli, in animo esse partes ministras, per quas movemur alimurque, propter ipsum principale nobis datas. In hoc principali est aliquid inrationale, est et rationale. Illud huic servit, hoc unum est, quod alio non refertur, sed omnia ad se refert. Nam illa quoque divina ratio omnibus praeposita est, ipsa sub nullo est; et haec autem nostra eadem est, quia ex illa est.

If on this we agree, it follows that we agree on this too: that the happy life is placed in this one thing — that the reason in us be perfect. For this alone does not let the spirit sink, but stands against fortune; in whatever state of things it keeps us secure. And that alone is a good which is never broken off. He is happy, I say, whom nothing makes less; he holds the heights, leaning on none but himself. For he who is held up by some aid can fall. If it is otherwise, things not ours will begin to count for much in us. But who wishes fortune to stand firm, or who, if he is prudent, wonders at himself on account of what is another’s?

Si de hoc inter nos convenit, sequitur ut de illo quoque conveniat, in hoc uno positam esse beatam vitam, ut in nobis ratio perfecta sit. Haec enim sola non submittit animum, stat contra fortunam; in quolibet rerum habitu securos servat. Id autem unum bonum est, quod numquam defringitur. Is est, inquam, beatus quem nulla res minorem facit; tenet summa, et ne ulli quidem nisi sibi innixus. Nam qui aliquo auxilio sustinetur, potest cadere. Si aliter est, incipient multum in nobis valere non nostra. Quis autem vult constare fortunam aut quis se prudens ob aliena miratur?

What is the happy life? Security and perpetual tranquillity. This greatness of mind will give, and constancy, tenacious of what has been well judged. How is this reached? If the truth has been wholly seen through; if in things to be done there has been kept order, measure, decorum, a will harmless and kindly, intent on reason and never departing from it, lovable and at once admirable. In short, to write you the formula briefly: the mind of a wise man ought to be such as would befit a god.

Quid est beata vita? Securitas et perpetua tranquillitas. Hanc dabit animi magnitudo, dabit constantia bene iudicati tenax. Ad haec quomodo pervenitur? Si veritas tota perspecta est; si servatus est in rebus agendis ordo, modus, decor, innoxia voluntas ac benigna, intenta rationi nec umquam ab illa recedens, amabilis simul mirabilisque. Denique ut breviter tibi formulam scribam, talis animus esse sapientis viri debet, qualis deum deceat.

What can he desire to whom all honorable things fall? For if things not honorable can confer anything toward the best state, then the happy life will lie in the very things without which there is the honorable. And what is baser or more foolish than to weave the good of a rational mind out of irrational things?

Quid potest desiderare is, cui omnia honesta contingunt? Nam si possunt aliquid non honesta conferre ad optimum statum, in his erit beata vita, sine quibus honesta. Et quid turpius stultiusve quam bonum rationalis animi ex inrationalibus nectere?

Yet some judge that the highest good can be increased, because it is too little full when the things of chance resist. Antipater too, among the great authors of this school, says that he assigns something to externals — but very little indeed. You see, though, what it is not to be content with the day, unless some little fire also shine. What weight can a spark have in this brightness of the sun?

Quidam tamen augeri summum bonum iudicant, quia parum plenum sit fortuitis repugnantibus. Antipater quoque inter magnos sectae huius auctores aliquid se tribuere dicit externis, sed exiguum admodum. Vides autem quale sit die non esse contentum, nisi aliquis igniculus adluxerit. Quod potest in hac claritate solis habere scintilla momentum?

If you are not content with the honorable alone, it is necessary that you wish to add either repose — what the Greeks call aochlesia — or pleasure. The one of these can in some way be received. For the mind, free, is at leisure from molestation for the inspecting of the universe, and nothing calls it away from the contemplation of nature. That other thing, pleasure, is the good of cattle. We are adding the irrational to the rational, the dishonorable to the honorable. The tickling of the body makes for this life;

Si non es sola honestate contentus, necesse est aut quietem adici velis, quam ἀοχλησίαν vocant Graeci, aut voluptatem. Horum alterum utcumque recipi potest. Vacat enim animus molestia liber ad inspectum universi, nihilque illum avocat a contemplatione naturae. Alterum illud, voluptas, bonum pecoris est. Adicimus rationali inrationale, honesto inhonestum. Ad hanc vitam facit titillatio corporis;

why then do you hesitate to say that it is well with a man, if it is well with his palate? And do you reckon this creature — I will not say among men, but among the living — whose highest good consists in tastes and colors and sounds? Let him depart from that number of living things, most beautiful and second to the gods: let an animal that rejoices in fodder be herded with the dumb beasts.

quid ergo dubitatis dicere bene esse homini, si palato bene est? Et hunc tu, non dico inter viros numeras, sed inter homines, cuius summum bonum saporibus et coloribus sonisque constat? Excedat ex hoc animalium numero pulcherrimo ac dis secundo: mutis adgregetur animal pabulo laetum.

The irrational part of the mind has two parts: the one spirited, ambitious, ungoverned, set in the passions; the other low, languid, given over to pleasures. That unbridled part — yet the better, certainly the stronger and more worthy of a man — they have left aside; this one, nerveless and abject, they have thought necessary to the happy life.

Inrationalis pars animi duas habet partes, alteram animosam, ambitiosam, inpotentem, positam in adfectionibus, alteram humilem, languidam, voluptatibus deditam; illam effrenatam, meliorem tamen, certe fortiorem ac digniorem viro reliquerunt, hanc necessariam beatae vitae putaverunt, enervem et abiectam.

In front a human face, and a maiden with lovely breast down to the waist; behind, a sea-monster of huge body, with dolphins’ tails joined to a belly of wolves.

Prima hominis facies et pulchro pectore virgo Pube tenus, postrema inmani corpore pistrix Delphinum caudas utero commissa luporum.

Man’s first art is virtue itself; to this is joined the useless and fluid flesh, fit only for taking in food, as Posidonius says. That divine virtue ends in slippery ground, and to its upper parts, venerable and heavenly, is stitched a sluggish and rotting animal. That other repose, indeed, of itself furnished nothing to the mind, but removed the impediments; pleasure, beyond that, dissolves it and softens all its strength. What so discordant a joining of bodies will be found? To the bravest thing the most inert is fastened, to the most severe the insufficiently serious, to the most holy the intemperate, even to the point of incest.

Prima ars hominis est ipsa virtus; huic committitur inutilis caro et fluida, receptandis tantum cibis habilis, ut ait Posidonius. Virtus illa divina in lubricum desinit et superioribus eius partibus venerandis atque caelestibus animal iners ac marcidum adtexitur. Illa utcumque altera quies nihil quidem ipsa praestabat animo, sed inpedimenta removebat; voluptas ultro dissolvit et omne robur emollit. Quae invenietur tam discors inter se iunctura corporum? Fortissimae rei inertissima adstruitur, severissimae parum seria, sanctissimae intemperans usque ad incesta.

"What then?" he says, "if good health and repose and freedom from pain will in no way impede virtue, will you not seek them?" Why should I not seek them? Not because they are goods, but because they are according to nature, and because they will be taken up by me by a good judgment. What then will be good in them? This one thing: to be well chosen. For when I put on clothing such as is fitting, when I walk as I ought, when I dine as I should, it is not the dinner or the walk or the clothing that is good, but my purpose in them, keeping in each matter a measure conformable to reason.

Quid ergo? inquit, si virtutem nihil inpeditura sit bona valitudo et quies et dolorum vacatio, non petes illas? Quidni petam? Non quia bona sunt, sed quia secundum naturam sunt, et quia bono a me iudicio sumentur. Quid erit tunc in illis bonum? Hoc unum, bene eligi. Nam cum vestem qualem decet, sumo, cum ambulo ut oportet, cum ceno quemadmodum debeo, non cena aut ambulatio aut vestis bona sunt, sed meum in iis propositum servantis in quaque re rationi convenientem modum.

I will add even now: the choice of clean clothing is to be sought by a man. For man is by nature a clean and elegant animal. And so clean clothing is not a good in itself, but the choice of clean clothing — because the good is not in the thing, but in the kind of choice. Our actions are honorable, not the very things that are done.

Etiamnunc adiciam: mundae vestis electio adpetenda est homini. Natura enim homo mundum et elegans animal est. Itaque non est bonum per se munda vestis, sed mundae vestis electio, quia non in re bonum est, sed in electione quali. Actiones nostrae honestae sunt, non ipsa quae aguntur.

What I have said of clothing, judge that I say the same of the body. For this too nature has wrapped about the mind as a kind of clothing; it is its covering. But who ever valued garments by the clothes-chest? The sheath makes the sword neither good nor bad. So about the body too I give you the same answer: I would indeed take, if the choice were given, both health and strength, but the good will be my judgment about them, not they themselves.

Quod de veste dixi, idem me dicere de corpore existima. Nam hoc quoque natura ut quandam vestem animo circumdedit; velamentum eius est. Quis autem umquam vestimenta aestimavit arcula? Nec bonum nec malum vagina gladium facit. Ergo de corpore quoque idem tibi respondeo: sumpturum quidem me, si detur electio, et sanitatem et vires, bonum autem futurum iudicium de illis meum, non ipsa.

"The wise man," he says, "is indeed happy; yet he does not attain that highest good unless the natural instruments also answer to him. And so he cannot be wretched who has virtue, but he is not most happy who is destitute of natural goods, such as health, such as the soundness of his limbs."

Est quidem, inquit, sapiens beatus; summum tamen illud bonum non consequitur, nisi illi et naturalia instrumenta respondeant. Ita miser quidem esse, qui virtutem habet, non potest, beatissimus autem non est, qui naturalibus bonis destituitur ut valitudine, ut membrorum integritate.

What seems more incredible, that you concede: that someone in the greatest and continual pains is not wretched, is even happy; what is lighter, you deny — that he is most happy. And yet if virtue can bring it about that someone is not wretched, more easily will it bring it about that he is most happy. For less interval remains from the happy to the most happy than from the wretched to the happy. Or can a thing of such power, that it places a man snatched from calamities among the happy, not add what remains, to make him most happy? Does it fail at the very top of the slope?

Quod incredibilius videtur, id concedis, aliquem in maximis et continuis doloribus non esse miserum, esse etiam beatum; quod levius est, negas, beatissimum esse. Atqui si potest virtus efficere, ne miser aliquis sit, facilius efficiet, ut beatissimus sit. Minus enim intervalli a beato ad beatissimum restat quam a misero ad beatum. An quae res tantum valet, ut ereptum calamitatibus inter beatos locet, non potest adicere quod superest, ut beatissimum faciat? In summo deficit clivo?

There are advantages in life and disadvantages, both outside us. If the good man is not wretched, though pressed by all disadvantages, how is he not most happy, if he lacks some advantages? For just as he is not pressed down to wretchedness by the burden of disadvantages, so he is not led away from being most happy by the want of advantages, but he is as much most happy without advantages as he is not wretched under disadvantages; or else his good can be torn from him, if it can be diminished.

Commoda sunt in vita et incommoda, utraque extra nos. Si non est miser vir bonus, quamvis omnibus prematur incommodis, quomodo non est beatissimus, si aliquibus commodis deficitur? Nam quemadmodum incommodorum onere usque ad miserum non deprimitur, sic commodorum inopia non deducitur a beatissimo, sed tam sine commodis beatissimus est, quam non est sub incommodis miser; aut potest illi eripi bonum suum, si potest minui.

A little before, I was saying that a little fire confers nothing to the light of the sun. For by its brightness whatever would shine without it is hidden. "But some things," he says, "stand in the sun’s way too." Yet the sun is whole even amid what is set against it, and though something lie between that prevents us from the sight of it, it is at work, it is borne on its course. As often as it has shone out among the clouds, it is no less than in a clear sky, not even slower — since there is a great difference whether something only stands in the way, or impedes.

Paulo ante dicebam igniculum nihil conferre lumini solis. Claritate enim eius quicquid sine illo luceret absconditur. Sed quaedam, inquit, soli quoque opstant. At sol integer est etiam inter opposita, et quamvis aliquid interiacet, quod nos prohibeat eius aspectu, in opere est, cursu suo fertur. Quotiens inter nubila eluxit, non est sereno minor, ne tardior quidem, quoniam multum interest, utrum aliquid obstet tantum, an inpediat.

In the same way, things set against virtue take nothing from it; it is not less, but it shines less. To us perhaps it does not appear and gleam equally, but to itself it is the same, and, after the manner of a darkened sun, exercises its force in the hidden. This, then, calamities and losses and injuries can do against virtue: what a mist can do against the sun.

Eodem modo virtuti opposita nihil detrahunt; non est minor, sed minus fulget. Nobis forsitan non aeque apparet ac nitet, sibi eadem est et more solis obscuri in occulto vim suam exercet. Hoc itaque adversus virtutem possunt calamitates et damna et iniuriae, quod adversus solem potest nebula.

One is found who says that the wise man, using a body too little prosperous, is neither wretched nor happy. He too is deceived, for he equates the things of chance with the virtues, and assigns as much to honorable things as to things lacking honor. But what is fouler, what more unworthy, than to compare things to be revered with things despised? For things to be revered are justice, piety, faith, fortitude, prudence; cheap, on the contrary, are those things which often fall more abundantly to the cheapest men — a solid shin, an arm, teeth, and the soundness and firmness of the muscles.

Invenitur, qui dicat sapientem corpore parum prospero usum nec miserum esse nec beatum. Hic quoque fallitur, exaequat enim fortuita virtutibus et tantundem tribuit honestis quantum honestate carentibus. Quid autem foedius, quid indignius quam comparari veneranda contemptis? Veneranda enim sunt iustitia, pietas, fides, fortitudo, prudentia; e contrario vilia sunt, quae saepe contingunt pleniora vilissimis, crus solidum et lacertus et dentes et tororum sanitas firmitasque.

Then, if the wise man, to whom the body is troublesome, will be held neither wretched nor happy, but be left in the middle, his life too will be neither to be sought nor to be fled. But what is so absurd as that the wise man’s life should not be to be sought? Or what so beyond belief as that there should be some life neither to be sought nor to be fled? Then, if the losses of the body do not make him wretched, they allow him to be happy. For things which have no power to transfer him into a worse state have none even to interrupt the best.

Deinde si sapiens, cui corpus molestum est, nec miser habebitur nec beatus, sed in medio relinquetur, vita quoque eius nec adpetenda erit nec fugienda. Quid autem tam absurdum quam sapientis vitam adpetendam non esse? Aut quid tam extra fidem quam esse aliquam vitam nec adpetendam nec fugiendam? Deinde si damna corporis miserum non faciunt, beatum esse patiuntur. Nam quibus potentia non est in peiorem transferendi statum, ne interpellandi quidem optimum.

"We know," he says, "something cold and something hot; between the two is the lukewarm; so someone is happy, someone wretched, someone neither happy nor wretched." I wish to shake out this image, set against us. If I pour more cold into that lukewarm, it will become cold. If I pour in more hot, it will at last become hot. But to this man, neither wretched nor happy, however much I add of miseries, he will not be wretched, as you say; therefore that image is unlike.

Frigidum, inquit, aliquid et calidum novimus, inter utrumque tepidum est; sic aliquis beatus est, aliquis miser, aliquis nec beatus nec miser. Volo hanc contra nos positam imaginem excutere. Si tepido illi plus frigidi ingessero, fiet frigidum. Si plus calidi adfudero, fiet novissime calidum. At huic nec misero nec beato quantumcumque ad miserias adiecero, miser non erit, quemadmodum dicitis; ergo imago ista dissimilis est.

Then I hand you a man neither wretched nor happy. To him I add blindness; he does not become wretched. I add disablement; he does not become wretched. I add pains continual and grave; he does not become wretched. The man whom so many evils do not transfer into a wretched life do not even lead out of a happy one.

Deinde trado tibi hominem nec miserum nec beatum. Huic adicio caecitatem; non fit miser. Adicio debilitatem; non fit miser. Adicio dolores continuos et graves; miser non fit. Quem tam multa mala in miseram vitam non transferunt, ne ex beata quidem educunt.

If the wise man cannot, as you say, fall from the happy into the wretched, he cannot fall into the not-happy. For why should he who has begun to slip stop somewhere midway? The thing that does not suffer him to roll to the bottom holds him at the top. Why should the happy life not be able to be torn apart? It cannot even be slackened, and therefore virtue, of itself, is enough for it.

Si non potest, ut dicitis, sapiens ex beato in miserum decidere, non potest in non beatum. Quare enim qui labi coepit, alicubi subsistat? Quae res illum non patitur ad imum devolvi, retinet in summo. Quidni non possit beata vita rescindi? Ne remitti quidem potest, et ideo virtus ad illam per se ipsa satis est.

"What then?" he says, "is the wise man not happier who has lived longer, whom no pain has called off, than he who has always wrestled with bad fortune?" Answer me: is he also better and more honorable? If these he is not, neither is he happier. To live more happily, he must live more rightly; if he cannot live more rightly, neither more happily. Virtue is not heightened, therefore neither is the happy life, which is from virtue. For virtue is so great a good that it does not feel those tiny additions — the shortness of life, and pain, and the various offenses of bodies. For pleasure is not worthy that it should look back at it.

Quid ergo? inquit, sapiens non est beatior, qui diutius vixit, quem nullus avocavit dolor, quam ille, qui cum mala fortuna semper luctatus est? Responde mihi: numquid et melior est et honestior? Si haec non sunt, ne beatior quidem est. Rectius vivat oportet, ut beatius vivat; si rectius non potest, ne beatius quidem. Non intenditur virtus, ergo ne beata quidem vita, quae ex virtute est. Virtus enim tantum bonum est, ut istas accessiones minutas non sentiat, brevitatem aevi et dolorem et corporum varias offensiones. Nam voluptas non est digna, ad quam respiciat.

What is chief in virtue? Not to need the future, nor to count its days; in however little time it consummates eternal goods. These things seem to us incredible and running out beyond human nature. For we measure its majesty by our own weakness, and put the name of virtue on our vices. What further? Does it not seem equally incredible that someone set in the highest torments should say, "I am happy"? And yet this voice was heard in the very workshop of pleasure. "A most happy day, this one I am passing, and the last," said Epicurus, when on one side the difficulty of urine racked him, on the other the incurable pain of an ulcerated belly.

Quid est in virtute praecipuum? Futuro non indigere nec dies suos computare; in quantulo libet tempore bona aeterna consummat. Incredibilia nobis haec videntur et supra humanam naturam excurrentia. Maiestatem enim eius ex nostra inbecillitate metimur et vitiis nostris nomen virtutis inponimus. Quid porro? Non aeque incredibile videtur aliquem in summis cruciatibus positum dicere beatus sum? Atqui haec vox in ipsa officina voluptatis audita est. Beatissimum, inquit, hunc et hunc diem ago Epicurus, cum illum hinc urinae difficultas torqueret, hinc insanabilis exulcerati dolor ventris.

Why then should these things be incredible among those who cultivate virtue, when they are found even among those over whom pleasure has held command? These too, degenerate and of the lowest mind, say that in the highest pains, in the highest calamities, the wise man will be neither wretched nor happy. And yet this too is incredible — nay, they are incredible. For I do not see how virtue, cast down from its height, is not driven to the lowest. Either it must guarantee happiness, or, if it is driven off from this, it will not prevent his becoming wretched. Standing, it cannot be sent off; either it must be conquered or conquer.

Quare ergo incredibilia ista sint aput eos, qui virtutem colunt, quom aput eos quoque reperiantur, aput quos voluptas imperavit? Hi quoque degeneres et humillimae mentis aiunt in summis doloribus, in summis calamitatibus sapientem nec miserum futurum nec beatum. Atqui hoc quoque incredibile est, immo incredibiles. Non video enim, quomodo non in infimum agatur e fastigio suo deiecta virtus. Aut beatum praestare debet, aut si ab hoc depulsa est, non prohibebit fieri miserum. Stans non potest mitti; aut vincatur oportet aut vincat.

"To the immortal gods alone," he says, "have virtue and the happy life fallen; to us a kind of shadow and likeness of those goods. We approach them, we do not arrive." But reason is common to gods and men; in them it is consummated, in us consummable.

Dis, inquit, inmortalibus solis et virtus et beata vita contigit, nobis umbra quaedam illorum bonorum et similitudo. Accedimus ad illa, non pervenimus. Ratio vero dis hominibusque communis est; haec in illis consummata est, in nobis consummabilis.

But our vices lead us to despair; for that other man is second-rate, as someone too little constant in guarding the best, whose judgment still wavers and is uncertain. Let him desire the sense of eyes and ears, good health, a not-ugly aspect of the body, and, his condition remaining, a longer span of years besides.

Sed ad desperationem nos vitia nostra perducunt; nam ille alter secundus est ut aliquis parum constans ad custodienda optima, cuius iudicium bibat etiamnunc et incertum est. Desideret oculorum atque aurium sensum, bonam valitudinem et non foedum aspectum corporis et habitu manente suo aetatis praeterea longius spatium.

If any has virtue and a spirit present in his body —

Si cui virtus animusque in corpore praesens,

No one improperly strives to ascend thither, whence he had descended. Why, moreover, should you not think that something divine exists in him who is a part of god? This whole, by which we are contained, is both one and god; and we are his companions and his members. Our mind is capable, is carried thither, if vices do not press it down. As the posture of our bodies is erect and looks toward heaven, so the mind, to which it is permitted to reach out as far as it will, has been formed by the nature of things for this: that it should will things equal to the gods’. And if it uses its own strength and extends itself into its own space, it strives toward the heights by no foreign road.

Nemo inprobe eo conatur ascendere, unde descenderat. Quid est autem cur non existimes in eo divini aliquid existere, qui dei pars est? Totum hoc, quo continemur, et unum est et deus; et socii sumus eius et membra. Capax est noster animus, perfertur illo, si vitia non deprimant. Quemadmodum corporum nostrorum habitus erigitur et spectat in caelum, ita animus, cui in quantum vult licet porrigi, in hoc a natura rerum formatus est, ut paria dis vellet. Et si utatur suis viribus ac se in spatium suum extendat, non aliena via ad summa nititur.

It was a great labor to go into heaven; the mind returns there. When it has gained this road, it goes boldly, a despiser of all things, and looks back at no money, and judges gold and silver — most worthy of the darkness in which they lay — not by this splendor with which they strike the eyes of the ignorant, but by the old mire from which our greed sorted them out and dug them up. It knows, I say, that riches are laid up elsewhere than where they are heaped; that it is the mind that ought to be filled, not the strongbox.

Magnus erat labor ire in caelum; redit. Cum hoc iter nactus est, vadit audaciter contemptor omnium nec ad pecuniam respicit aurumque et argentum illis, in quibus iacuere, tenebris dignissima, non ab hoc aestimat splendore, quo inperitorum verberant oculos, sed a vetere caeno, ex quo illa secrevit cupiditas nostra et effodit. Scit, inquam, aliubi positas esse divitias quam quo congeruntur; animum impleri debere, non arcam.

This mind one may set in lordship over all things, this one may lead into possession of the nature of things, so that it bounds its own by the limits of east and west, and, after the manner of the gods, possesses all things, and from above looks down on the rich with their wealth — of whom no one is as glad of his own as he is galled by another’s.

Hunc inponere dominio rerum omnium licet, hunc in possessionem rerum naturae inducere, ut sua orientis occidentisque terminis finiat deorumque ritu cuncta possideat, cum opibus suis divites superne despiciat, quorum nemo tam suo laetus est quid cristis alieno.

When it has borne itself to this sublimity, it is also no lover of the body, but a steward of it, as of a necessary burden, and does not subject itself to that on which it is set. No one is free who serves the body. For — to pass by the other masters whom excessive solicitude for it finds — the body’s own command is peevish and dainty.

Cum se in hanc sublimitatem tulit, corporis quoque ut oneris necessarii non amator, sed procurator est nec se illi, cui inpositus est, subicit. Nemo liber est, qui corpori servit. Nam ut alios dominos, quos nimia pro illo sollicitudo invenit; transeas, ipsius morosum imperium delicatumque est.

Given as prey to the sea-dogs —

Canibus data praeda marinis,

Nor do I care for a tomb. Nature buries the abandoned.

Nec tumulum curo. Sepelit natura relictos.

In the letter in which you complained of the death of the philosopher Metronax, as though he both could and ought to have lived longer, I missed that fairness of yours, which abounds in you toward every person, in every affair, but is wanting in this one thing — in which it is wanting in all men. I have found many fair toward men, none toward the gods. Daily we upbraid fate: why was that man snatched off in mid-course? Why is that other not snatched off? Why does he draw out an old age burdensome both to himself and to others?

In epistula, qua de morte Metronaetis Metronactis philosophi querebaris tamquam et potuisset diutius vivere et debuisset, aequitatem tuam desideravi, quae tibi in omni persona, in omni negotio superest, in una re deest, in qua omnibus. Multos inveni aequos adversus homines, adversus deos neminem, Obiurgamus cotidie fatum: quare ille in medio cursu raptus est? Quare ille non rapitur? Quare senectutem et sibi et aliis gravem extendit?

Which, I beg you, do you judge fairer — that you obey nature, or that nature obey you? And what difference does it make how quickly you depart from where, in any case, you must depart? We must take care not to live long, but to live enough; for to live long, you need fate; to live enough, the mind. Life is long, if it is full; and it is filled when the mind has rendered to itself its own good and has transferred to itself the power over itself.

Utrum, obsecro te, aequius iudicas te naturae an tibi parere naturam? Quid autem interest, quam cito exeas, unde utique exeundum est? Non ut diu vivamus curandum est, sed ut satis; nam ut diu vivas, fato opus est, ut satis, animo. Longa est vita, si plena est; impletur autem, cum animus sibi bonum suum reddidit et ad se potestatem sui transtulit.

What do those eighty years profit him, passed in idleness? That man did not live, but lingered in life; nor did he die late, but long. "He lived eighty years." It matters from what day you count his death.

Quid illum octoginta anni iuvant per inertiam exacti? Non vixit iste, sed in vita moratus est, nec sero mortuus est, sed diu. Octoginta annis vixit. Interest, mortem eius ex quo die numeres.

"But that other died green." Yet he discharged the duties of a good citizen, a good friend, a good son; in no part did he fall short. Although his age was incomplete, his life was complete. "He lived eighty years." Nay, he existed eighty years — unless perhaps you say he lived in the way trees are said to live. I beg you, Lucilius, let us see to it that, like precious things, our life is not of wide extent, but of great weight. Let us measure it by deeds, not by time. Do you wish to know what difference there is between this man — vigorous, a despiser of fortune, who has served out all the campaigns of human life and been carried up to its highest good — and that other, to whom many years have been passed over? The one is, even after death; the other perished before death.

At ille obiit viridis. Sed officia boni civis, boni amici, boni filii executus est; in nulla parte cessavit. Lieet licet aetas eius inperfecta sit, vita perfecta est. Octoginta annis vixit. Immo octoginta annis fuit, nisi forte sic vixisse eum dicis, quomodo dicuntur arbores vivere. Obsecro te, Lucili, hoc agamus, ut quemadmodum pretiosa rerum sic vita nostra non multum pateat, sed multum pendeat. Actu illam metiamur, non tempore. Vis scire, quid inter hunc intersit vegetum contemptoremque fortunae functum omnibus vitae humanae stipendiis atque in summum bonum eius evectum, et illum, cui multi anni transmissi sunt? Alter post mortem quoque est, alter ante mortem periit.

Let us praise, then, and set in the number of the happy, the man to whom however little time fell was well placed. For he saw the true light. He was not one of the many. He both lived and was vigorous. Sometimes he enjoyed a clear sky; sometimes, as is wont, the flash of a strong star shone out through the clouds. Why do you ask how long he lived? He lives; he has leapt across even to posterity and given himself into memory.

Laudemus itaque et in numero felicium reponamus eum, cui quantulumcumque temporis contigit, bene conlocatum est. Vidit enim veram lucem. Non fuit unus e multis. Et vixit et viguit. Aliquando sereno usus est, aliquando, ut solet, validi sideris fulgor per nubila emicuit. Quid quaeris quamdiu vixerit? Vivit; ad posteros usque transiluit et se in memoriam dedit.

Nor for that reason would I refuse to have more years added to me; yet I shall say that nothing was wanting to a happy life, even if its span is cut short. For I have not fitted myself to that day which greedy hope had promised me as my last, but I have looked on every day as if it were the last. Why do you ask me when I was born, or whether I am still reckoned among the younger men?

Nec ideo mihi plures annos accedere recusaverim, nihil tamen mihi ad beatam vitam defuisse dicam, si spatium eius inciditur. Non enim ad eum diem me aptavi, quem ultimum mihi spes avida promiserat, sed nullum non tamquam ultimum aspexi. Quid me interrogas, quando natus sim, an inter iuniores adhue adhuc censear?

I have what is mine. As a man can be perfect in a smaller bodily frame, so too in a smaller measure of time life can be perfect. Age is among external things. How long I am to be is another’s; how long I shall be, that I may truly be, is mine. Demand this of me: that I do not measure out an ignoble span as if through the dark, but that I live my life, not pass it by.

Habeo meum. Quemadmodum in minore corporis habitu potest homo esse perfectus, sic et in minore temporis modo potest vita esse perfecta. Aetas inter externa est. Quamdiu sim, alienum est; quamdiu ero, ut sim, meum est. Hoc a me exige, ne velut per tenebras aevum ignobile emetiar, ut agam vitam, non ut praetervehar.

Do you ask what is the amplest span of life? To live up to wisdom. He who has reached that has touched not the farthest end, but the greatest. Let him indeed boast boldly and give thanks to the gods, and among them to himself, and charge to the nature of things the fact that he existed. For with reason will he charge it; he has given back to it a better life than he received. He has set up the model of a good man, has shown of what kind and how great a man may be. Had he added anything, it would have been like what had gone before.

Quaeris quod sit amplissimum vitae spatium? Usque ad sapientiam vivere. Qui ad illam pervenit, attigit non longissimum finem, sed maximum. Ille vero glorietur audacter et dis agat gratias interque eos sibi, et rerum naturae inputet, quod fuit. Merito enim inputabit; meliorem illi vitam reddidit quam accepit. Exemplar boni viri posuit, qualis quantusque esset ostendit. Si quid adiecisset, fuisset simile praeterito.

And yet to what point do we live? We have enjoyed the knowledge of all things. We know from what beginnings nature raises herself, how she orders the world, by what changes she calls back the year, how she has shut in all things that ever were and made herself the end of herself. We know that the stars go by their own impulse, that nothing stands save the earth, that the rest run on with continual speed. We know how the moon passes the sun, why, slower, it leaves the swifter one behind it, how it receives or loses its light, what cause brings on night, what brings back day. To that place one must go, where you may look on these things more closely.

Et tamen quo usque vivimus? Omnium rerum cognitione fruiti sumus. Scimus a quibus principiis natura se adtollat, quemadmodum ordinet mundum, per quas annum vices revocet, quemadmodum omnia, quae usquam erant, cluserit et se ipsam finem sui fecerit. Scimus sidera impetu suo vadere, praeter terram nihil stare, cetera continua velocitate decurrere. Scimus quemadmodum solem luna praetereat, quare tardior velociorem post se relinquat, quomodo lumen accipiat aut perdat, quae causa inducat noctem, quae reducat diem. Illuc eundum est, ubi ista propius aspicias.

"Nor with this hope," says that wise man, "do I go out more bravely — that I judge the way to my gods to lie open to me. I have indeed deserved to be admitted, and have already been among them, and have sent my mind thither, and they had sent theirs to me. But suppose me taken from the midst, and that after death nothing of the man remains; I have a spirit equally great, even if I depart to pass nowhere."

Nec hac spe, inquit sapiens ille, fortius exeo, quod patere mihi ad deos meos iter iudico. Merui quidem admitti et iam inter illos fui animumque illo meum misi et ad me illi suum miserant. Sed tolli me de medio puta et post mortem nihil ex homine restare; aeque magnum animum habeo, etiam si nusquam transiturus excedo.

"He did not live as many years as he could." A book of few verses, too, is both praiseworthy and useful; you know how ponderous the annals of Tanusius are, and what they are called. This is the long life of some men, and what follows "the annals of Tanusius."

Non tam multis vixit annis quam potuit. Et paucorum versuum liber est et quidem laudandus atque utilis; annales Tanusii scis quam ponderosi sint et quid vocentur. Hoc est vita quorumdam longa, et quod Tanusii sequitur annales.

Do you judge a man happier who is killed on the last day of the games than one killed at the middle? Do you think anyone so foolishly greedy of life that he would rather have his throat cut in the spoliarium than in the arena? By no greater interval do we precede one another. Death goes through all; he who has killed follows the killed. It is a very little thing about which there is the most anxious concern. But what does it matter how long you avoid what you cannot escape? Farewell.

Numquid feliciorem iudicas eum, qui summo die muneris, quam eum, qui medio occiditur? Numquid aliquem tam stulte cupidum esse vitae putas, ut iugulari in spoliario quam in harena malit? Non maiore spatio alter alterum praeeedimus praecedimus. Mors per omnes it; qui occidit, consequitur occisum. Minimum est, de quo sollicitissime agitur. Quid autem ad rem pertinet, quam diu vites, quod evitare non possis? Vale.

That part of philosophy which gives precepts proper to each person and role, and does not shape the human being as a whole, but advises the husband how to conduct himself toward his wife, the father how to bring up his children, the master how to govern his slaves — this part some have taken up alone, leaving the rest as if it strayed beyond our use; as though anyone could advise on a part who has not first embraced the sum of the whole of life.

Eam partem philosophiae, quae dat propria cuique personae praecepta nec in universum conponit hominem, sed marito suadet quomodo se gerat adversus uxorem, patri quomodo edueet educet liberos, domino quomodo servos regat, quidam solam receperunt, ceteras quasi extra utilitatem nostram vagantes reliquerunt, tamquam quis posset de parte suadere nisi qui summam prius totius vitae complexus est.

But Aristo the Stoic, on the contrary, holds this part to be of light weight, and that its precepts do not sink down into the breast — mere old wives’ precepts; he says the greatest profit comes from the very doctrines of philosophy and from the definition of the highest good. The man who has understood and learned this well prescribes to himself what must be done in each matter.

Sed Ariston Stoicus contrario hanc partem levem existimat et quae non descendat in pectus usque anilia habentem praecepta, plurimum ait proficere ipsa decreta philosophiae constitutionemque summi boni. Quam qui bene intellexit ac didicit, quid in quaque re faciendum sit sibi ipse praecipit.

Just as one learning to throw the javelin aims at a fixed mark and trains his hand to direct what he will hurl, and once he has gained this skill by instruction and practice he uses it for whatever he wishes — for he has learned to strike not this or that, but whatever he pleases: so the man who has equipped himself for the whole of life does not need to be admonished piece by piece, being instructed as to the whole — instructed not in how he is to live with wife or son, but in how to live well. And in this is included how he is to live with wife and children.

Quemadmodum qui iaculari discit, destinatum locum captat et manum format ad derigenda quae mittet, eum hanc vim ex disciplina et exercitatione percepit, quocumque vult illa utitur, didicit enim non hoc aut illud ferire, sed quodcumque voluerit: sic qui se ad totam vitam instruxit, non desiderat particulatim admoneri, doctus in totum, non enim quomodo cum uxore aut cum filio viveret, sed quomodo bene viveret. In hoc est et quomodo cum uxore ac liberis vivat.

Cleanthes judges this part useful indeed, but feeble unless it flows from the whole, unless it has come to know the doctrines of philosophy and its first principles. The topic therefore divides into two questions: whether it is useful or useless, and whether by itself it can produce a good man — that is, whether it is superfluous or makes all the rest superfluous.

Cleanthes utilem quidem iudicat et hanc partem, sed inbecillam nisi ab universo fluit, nisi decreta ipsa philosophiae et capita cognovit. In duas ergo quaestiones locus iste dividitur: utrum utilis an inutilis sit, et an solus virum bonum possit efficere, id est utrum supervacmis supervacuus sit an omnes faciat supervacuos.

Those who would have this part seem superfluous argue thus: if something set before the eyes hinders the sight, it must be removed. While that is in the way, a man wastes his effort who prescribes, “You shall walk so, you shall reach out your hand so.” In the same way, when something blinds the mind and hinders it from discerning the order of duties, it is no use to prescribe, “You shall live thus with your father, thus with your wife.” For precepts will profit nothing so long as error lies spread over the mind; once that is scattered, it will be plain what is owed to each duty. Otherwise you teach him what a sound man should do, but you do not make him sound.

Qui hanc partem videri volunt supervacuam, hoc aiunt: Si quid oculis oppositum moratur aciem, removendum est. Illo quidem obiecto operam perdit qui praecipit: sic ambulabis, illo manum porriges. Eodem modo ubi aliqua res occaecat animum et ad officiorum dispiciendum ordinem inpedit, nihil agit qui praecipit: sic vives cum patre, sic cum uxore. Nihil enim proficient praecepta, quamdiu menti error offusus est; si ille discutitur, apparebit, quid cuique debeatur officio. Alioqui doces illum, quid sano faciendum sit, non efficis sanum.

You show the poor man how to act the rich man’s part — how can this be done while his poverty remains? You point out to the hungry man what he should do as though full — sooner drag out the hunger fixed in his marrow. The same I say to you of all the vices: the vices themselves must be removed, and one must not prescribe what cannot be done while they remain. Unless you drive out the false opinions under which we labor, the greedy man will not hear how money should be used, nor the timid how to despise what is dangerous.

Pauperi ut agat divitem monstras; hoc quomodo manente paupertate fieri potest? Ostendis esurienti quid tamquam satur faciat; fixam potius medullis famem detrahe. Idem tibi de omnibus vitiis dico: ipsa removenda sunt, non praecipiendum quod fieri illis manentibus non potest. Nisi opiniones falsas, quibus laboramus, expuleris, nec avarus, quomodo pecunia utendum sit, exaudiet, nec timidus, quomodo periculosa contemnat.

You must bring him to know that money is neither good nor evil; show him the rich at their most wretched. You must bring him to know that whatever we dread in public is not so much to be feared as rumor carries it about — that there is no pain in dying nor in death; that often in death, which it is law to suffer, there is great solace, because it returns to no one; that in pain his own obstinacy will serve as a remedy, for a man makes lighter for himself whatever he has endured with defiance. That the nature of pain is best in this: that pain drawn out cannot be great, nor great pain be drawn out; that all things are to be taken bravely which the necessity of the world lays upon us.

Efficias oportet, ut sciat pecuniam nec bonum nec malum esse; ostendas illi miserrimos divites. Efficias, ut quicquid publice expavimus, sciat non esse tam timendum quam fama circumfert, nec dolere nec mori; saepe in morte, quam pati lex est, magnum esse solacium, quod ad neminem redit; in dolore pro remedio futuram obstinationem animi, qui levius sibi facit, quicquid contumaciter passus est. Optimam doloris esse naturam, quod non potest nec qui extenditur magnus esse nec qui est magnus extendi; omnia fortiter excipienda, quae nobis mundi necessitas imperat.

When by these doctrines you have led him to a view of his own condition, and he has learned that the happy life is not that which goes by pleasure but by nature, when he has come to love virtue as the one good of man and to flee baseness as the only evil, and has learned that all the rest — riches, honors, good health, strength, commands — are a middle region, to be counted neither among goods nor among evils: then he needs no monitor for each particular to tell him, “Step forward thus, dine thus. This befits a man, this a woman; this a husband, this a bachelor.”

His decretis eum illum in conspectum suae condicionis adduxeris et cognoverit beatam esse vitam non quae secundum voluptatem est, sed secundum naturam, cum virtutem unicum bonum hominis adamaverit, turpitudinem solum malum fugerit, reliqua omnia, divitias, honores, bonam valitudinem vires, imperia, scicrit scierit esse mediam partem nec bonis adnumerandam nec malis, monitorem non desiderant ad singula, qui dicat: sic incede, sic cena. Hoc viro hoc feminae, hoc marito hoc caelibi convenit.

For those who give such admonitions most carefully cannot themselves carry them out. This the tutor prescribes to the boy, the grandmother to her grandson, and the most hot-tempered schoolmaster argues that one must not grow angry. Walk into an elementary school, and you will see that these things, which the philosophers toss off with a vast lifting of the brow, stand written in a child’s copybook.

Ista enim qui diligentissime monent, ipsi facere non possunt. Haec paedagogus puero, haec avia nepoti praecipit, et irascendum non esse magister iracundissimus disputat. Si ludum litterarium intraveris, scies ista, quae ingenti supercilio philosophi iactant, in puerili esse praescripto.

Will you then prescribe the manifest or the doubtful? The manifest need no monitor; in doubtful matters the one who prescribes is not believed; to prescribe is therefore superfluous. Learn it in just this way. If you admonish what is obscure and ambiguous, it will need to be propped with proofs. And if you are going to prove, then the things by which you prove carry more weight and are enough of themselves.

Utrum deinde manifesta an dubia praecipies? Non desiderant manifesta monitorem, praecipienti dubia non creditur; supervacuum est ergo praecipere. Id adeo sic disce. Si id mones, quod obscurum est et ambiguum, probationibus adiuvandum erit. Si probaturus es, illa per quae probas plus valent satisque per se sunt.

“Treat your friend thus, thus your fellow-citizen, thus your partner.” Why? “Because it is just.” All this the topic “On Justice” delivers to me. There I find that fairness is to be sought for its own sake, that we are neither driven to it by fear nor hired to it by reward, that no man is just to whom anything in this virtue pleases except itself. When I have persuaded myself of this and drunk it in, what good are these precepts, which teach a man already taught? To give precepts to one who knows is superfluous, to one who does not, too little. For he ought to hear not only what is prescribed to him, but also why.

Sic amico utere, sic cive, sic socio. Quare? Quia iustum est. Omnia ista mihi de iustitia locus tradit. Illic invenio aequitatem per se expetendam, nec metu nos ad illam cogi nec mercede conduci, non esse iustum, cui quidquam in hac virtute placet praeter ipsam. Hoc cum persuasi mihi et perbibi, quid ista praecepta proficiunt, quae eruditum docent? Praecepta dare scienti supervacuum est, nescienti parum. Audire enim debet non tantum, quid sibi praecipiatur, sed etiam quare.

Are they, I ask, necessary to one who holds true opinions about goods and evils, or to one who does not? He who does not will get no help from you; his ears are possessed by a rumor contrary to your admonitions. He who has an exact judgment of what is to be fled and sought knows what he must do, even when you are silent. This whole part of philosophy, then, can be cleared away.

Utrum, inquam, veras opiniones habenti de bonis malisque sunt necessaria an non habenti? Qui non habet, nihil a te adiuvabitur; aures eius contraria monitionibus tuis fama possedit. Qui habet exactum iudicium de fugiendis petendisque, scit, quid sibi faciendum sit, etiam te tacente. Tota ergo pars ista philosophiae summoveri potest.

There are two reasons why we go wrong: either there is in the mind a malice contracted from corrupt opinions, or, even if it is not occupied by what is false, it is prone to the false and is swiftly corrupted by an appearance that drags it where it ought not. We must therefore either thoroughly cure the sick mind and free it of its vices, or, while it is still empty but inclined to the worse, take possession of it first. Both of these the doctrines of philosophy do; that kind of prescribing, then, accomplishes nothing.

Duo sunt, propter quae delinquimus: aut inest animo pravis opinionibus malitia contracta aut, etiam si non est falsis occupatus, ad falsa proclivis est et cito specie quo non oportet trahente corrumpitur. Itaque debemus aut percurarc percurare mentem aegram et vitiis liberare, aut vacantem quidem, sed ad peiora pronam praeoeeupare praeoccupare. Utrumque decreta philosophiae faciunt; ergo tale praceipiendi praecipiendi genus nil agit.

Besides, if we give precepts to individuals, the task is past grasping. For we must give one set to the moneylender, another to the man who tills a field, another to the trader, another to the man who courts the friendships of kings, another to him who will love his equals, another to him who will love his inferiors.

Praeterea si praecepta singulis damus, inconprehensibile opus est. Alia enim dare debemus faeneranti, alia colenti agrum, alia negotianti, alia regum amicitias sequenti, alia pares, alia inferiores amaturo.

In marriage you will prescribe how a man is to live with a wife he has married as a virgin, how with one who has known another man’s marriage before him, how with a wealthy wife, how with one without a dowry. Or do you think there is no difference between the barren and the fruitful, between the older woman and the girl, between a mother and a stepmother? We cannot take in every kind, and yet each demands its own; but the laws of philosophy are short, and bind every case.

In matrimonio praecipies, quomodo vivat eum uxore aliquis, quam virginem duxit, quomodo eum ea, quae alicuius ante matrimonium experta est, quemadmodum eum locuplete, quemadmodum cum indotata. An non putas aliquid esse discriminis inter sterilem et fecundam, inter proveetiorem provectiorem et puellam, inter matrem et novercam? Omnes species conplecti non possumus, atqui singulae propria exigunt; leges autem philosophiae breves sunt et omnia alligant.

Add now that the precepts of wisdom ought to be fixed and certain; if any cannot be fixed, they are outside wisdom — wisdom knows the limits of things. This preceptive part, then, must be cleared away, because what it promises to a few it cannot furnish to all; but wisdom holds them all.

Adice nunc, quod sapientiae praecepta finita debent esse et certa: si qua finiri non possunt, extra sapientiam sunt; sapientia rerum terminos novit. Ergo ista praceeptiva praeceptiva pars summovenda est, quia quod paucis promittit, praestare omnibus non potest; sapientia autem omnes tenet.

Between madness at large and the madness that is handed over to physicians there is no difference, except that the latter labors from disease, the former from false opinions. The one has drawn the causes of its frenzy from ill health; the other is itself the mind’s ill health. If a man should give a madman precepts on how he ought to speak, how to walk, how to bear himself in public and in private, he will be more insane than the very man he admonishes. The black bile must be treated and the cause of the frenzy itself removed. The same must be done in this other frenzy of the mind. The frenzy itself must be dispelled; otherwise the words of those who admonish will go for nothing.

Inter insaniam publicam et hanc, quae medicis traditur, nihil interest nisi quod haec morbo laborat, illa opinionibus falsis. Altera causas furoris traxit ex valitudine, altera animi mala valitudo est. Si quis furioso praecepta det, quomodo loqui debeat, quomodo procedere, quomodo in publico se gerere, quomodo in privato, erit ipso, quem monebit, insanior. Ei bilis nigra curanda est et ipsa furoris causa removenda. Idem in hoc alio animi furore faciendum est. Ipse discuti debet; alioqui abibunt in vanum monentium verba.

These things are said by Aristo; to them we shall reply point by point. First, against his claim that if something blocks the eye and hinders sight, it must be removed. I grant that such a man needs no precepts in order to see, but a remedy by which the sight is cleansed and escapes the hindrance that obstructs it. For it is by nature that we see, and he who removes the obstacles gives the eye back its own use. But what is owed to each duty, nature does not teach.

Haec ab Aristone dicuntur; cui respondebimus ad singula. Primum adversus illud, quod ait, si quid obstat oculo et inpedit visum, debere removeri. Fateor huic non esse opus praeceptis ad videndum, sed remedio, quo purgetur acies et officientem sibi moram effugiat. Natura enim videmus, cui usum sui reddit qui removet obstantia. Quid autem cuique debeatur officio, natura non docet.

Next: the man whose cataract has been cured does not at once recover his sight so as to be able to give it to others as well; but a man freed from malice frees others too. There is no need of exhortation, nor even of counsel, for the eye to know the properties of colors; it will tell white from black with no one to admonish it. The mind, on the contrary, needs many precepts to see what is to be done in life — though even with the eyes the physician not only cures the sick but also admonishes.

Deinde cuius curata suffusio est, is non protinus eum visum recepit, aliis quoque potest reddere; malitia liberatus et liberat. Non opus est exhortatione, ne consilio quidem, ut colorum proprietates oculus intellegat, a nigro album etiam nullo monente distinguet. Multis contra praeceptis eget animus, ut videat, quid agendum sit in vita; quamquam oculis quoque aegros medicus non tantum curat sed etiam monet.

“There is no reason,” he says, “why you should at once trust your weak sight to a harsh light; pass first from darkness to shadowed places, then dare more, and little by little accustom yourself to bear the bright light. There is no reason why you should study after eating, no reason why you should put a strain on eyes that are full and swollen; avoid the draft and the force of cold rushing into your face” — and other things of the kind, which profit no less than medicines do. Medicine adds counsel to its remedies.

Non est, inquit, quod protinus inbecillam aciem committas inprobo lumini; a tenebris primum ad umbrosa procede, deinde plus aude et paulatim claram lucem pati adsuesce. Non est quod post cibum studeas, non est quod plenis oculis ac tumentibus imperes; adflatum et vim frigoris in os occurrentis evita; alia eiusmodi, quae non minus quam medicamenta proficiunt. Adicit remediis medicina consilium.

“Error,” he says, “is the cause of sinning. Precepts do not strip this from us, nor do they overthrow false opinions about goods and evils.” I grant that precepts of themselves are not effective to overturn a depraved persuasion of the mind; but they do not for that reason profit nothing, even when joined to others. First, they renew the memory; then the things that, seen all together, looked more confused are, once divided into parts, considered more carefully. By that reasoning you might call consolations superfluous too, and exhortations; yet these are not superfluous — therefore neither are admonitions.

Error, inquit, est causa peccandi. Hunc nobis praecepta non detrahunt nec expugnant opiniones de bonis ac malis falsas. Concedo per se efficacia praecepta non esse ad evertendam pravam animi persuasionem; sed non ideo nihil ne aliis quidem adiecta proficiunt. Primum memoriam renovant; deinde quae in universo confusius videbantur, in partes divisa diligentius considerantur. Aut isto modo licet et consolationes dicas supervacuas et exhortationes; atqui non sunt supervacuae, ergo ne monitiones quidem.

“It is foolish,” he says, “to prescribe to a sick man what he ought to do as though sound, when his health must be restored — without which the precepts are vain.” And what of this: that the sick and the sound have certain things in common about which they must be admonished — that they not greedily reach for food, that they avoid weariness? The poor man and the rich have certain precepts in common.

Stultum est, inquit, praecipere aegro, quid facere tamquam sanus debeat, cum restituenda sanitas sit, sine qua inrita sunt praecepta. Quid, quod habent aegri quaedam sanique communia, de quibus admonendi sunt? Tamquam ne avide cibos adpetant, ut lassitudinem vitent. Habent quaedam praecepta communia pauper et dives.

“Cure avarice,” he says, “and you will have nothing to admonish either the poor man or the rich about, once the craving of each has settled.” And what of this: that it is one thing not to crave money, another to know how to use money? The avaricious do not know its measure; even the non-avaricious do not know its use. “Take away the errors,” he says, “and the precepts are superfluous.” That is false. Suppose avarice slackened, suppose luxury reined in, the bridle thrown on rashness, the spur set to sloth: even when the vices are removed, we must still learn what we ought to do, and how.

Sana. inquit, avaritiam, et nihil habebis quod admoneas aut pauperem aut divitem, si cupiditas utriusque consedit. Quid, quod aliud est non concupiscere pecuniam, aliud uti pecunia scire? Cuius avari modum ignorant, etiam non avari usum. Tolle, inquit, errores; supervacua praecepta sunt. Falsum est. Puta enim avaritiam relaxatam, puta adstrictam esse luxuriam, temeritati frenos iniectos, ignaviae subditum calcar; etiam remotis vitiis quid et quemadmodum debeamus facere, discendum est.

“Admonitions applied to grave vices,” he says, “will accomplish nothing.” Medicine too does not conquer incurable diseases, yet it is applied — to some as a cure, to others as a relief. Not even the whole force of philosophy, though it summon all its strength to the task, will draw out of men’s minds a plague now hardened and old. But it does not heal nothing because it does not heal all.

Nihil, inquit, efficient monitiones admotae gravibus vitiis. Ne medicina quidem morbos insanabiles vincit, tamen adhibetur aliis in remedium, aliis in levamentum. Ne ipsa quidem universae philosophiae vis, licet totas in hoc vires suas advocet, duram iam et veterem animis extrahet pestem. Sed non ideo nihil sanat, quia non omnia.

“What is the use,” he says, “of pointing out the obvious?” A great deal; for sometimes we know a thing and do not attend to it. Admonition does not teach, but it draws the attention, rouses, holds the memory and does not let it slip. We pass over most things that lie before our eyes. To admonish is a kind of exhorting. Often the mind feigns not to see even what is plain; the knowledge of the best-known things must therefore be pressed upon it. Here that saying of Calvus against Vatinius is to be repeated: “You know bribery has been at work, and that you know this, everyone knows.”

Quid prodest, inquit, aperta monstrare? Plurimum; interdum enim scimus nec adtendimus. Non docet admonitio, sed advertit, sed excitat, sed memoriam continet nec patitur elabi. Pleraque ante oculos posita transimus. Admonere genus adhortandi est. Saepe animus etiam aperta dissimulat; ingerenda est itaque illi notitia rerum notissimarum. Illa hoc loco in Vatinium Calvi repetenda sententia est: faetum factum esse ambitum scitis, et hoc vos scire omnes sciunt.

You know that friendships must be kept sacred — and you do not do it. You know that a man is shameless who demands chastity of his wife while himself the corrupter of other men’s wives; you know that, as she may have nothing to do with an adulterer, so you may have nothing to do with a mistress — and you do not do it. And so you must again and again be led back to memory; for these things should not be laid up out of reach, but kept ready to hand. Whatever is wholesome ought to be often handled, often turned over, so that it is not only known to us but also at the ready. Add now that even the plain is wont to grow plainer.

Seis Scis amicitias sancte colendas esse, sed non facis. Seis Scis inprobum esse, qui ab uxore pudicitiam exigit, ipse alienarum corruptor uxorum; scis ut illi nil eum adultero, sic tibi nil esse debere cum paelice, et non facis. Itaque subinde ad memoriam redueendus reducendus es; non enim reposita illa esse oportet, sed in promptu. Quaecumque salutaria sunt, saepe agitari debent, saepe versari, ut non tantum nota sint nobis, sed etiam parata. Adice nune nunc, quod aperta quoque apertiora fieri solent.

“If what you prescribe is doubtful,” he says, “you will have to add proofs; then it is the proofs, not the precepts, that profit.” And what of this: that even without proofs the mere authority of the one admonishing helps — just as the answers of the jurists carry weight even when no reason is given? Besides, the precepts themselves carry much weight in their own right, especially if they are woven into verse or compressed in prose into a maxim, like that saying of Cato’s: “Buy not what is useful, but what is needful; what is not needful is dear at a penny.” Such are those given by an oracle, or like them: “Spare the moment”; “Know thyself.”

Si dubia sunt, inquit, quae praecipis, probationes adicere debebis; ergo illae, non praecepta proficient. Quid, quod etiam sine probationibus ipsa monentis auctoritas prodest? Sic quomodo iurisconsultorum valent responsa, etiam si ratio non redditur. Praeterea ipsa, quae praecipiuntur, per se multum habent ponderis, utique si aut carmini intexta sunt aut prosa oratione in sententiam coartata, sicut illa Catoniana: emas non quod opus est, sed quod necesse est; quod non opus est, asse carum est, qualia sunt illa aut reddita oraculo aut similia: tempori parce, te nosce.

The remedy for wrongs is forgetting. Fortune favors the daring; the sluggard is his own obstacle.

Iniuriarum remedium est oblivio. Audentes fortuna iuvat, piger ipse sibi opstat.

The mind carries the seeds of all honorable things, and these are roused by admonition, no otherwise than a spark, helped by a light breath, unfolds its own fire. Virtue rises up when it is touched and driven. Besides, there are some things which are indeed in the mind, but not ready, which begin to be within reach once they are spoken. Some lie scattered in different places, which an unpracticed mind cannot draw together. They must therefore be gathered into one and joined, so that they may carry more weight and lift the mind the higher.

Omnium honestarum rerum semina animi gerunt, quae admonitione excitantur, non aliter quam scintilla flatu levi adiuta ignem suum explicat. Erigitur virtus, eum tacta est et inpulsa. Praeterea quaedam sunt quidem in animo, sed parum prompta, quae incipiunt in expedito esse, eum dicta sunt. Quaedam diversis locis iacent sparsa, quae contrahere inexercitata mens non potest. Itaque in unum conferenda sunt et iungenda, ut plus valeant animumque magis adlevent.

Or, if precepts are no help, all instruction must be done away with, and we ought to be content with nature itself. Those who say this do not see that one man’s nature is quick and upright, another’s slow and dull, and certainly that one is more gifted than another. The force of natural gift is fed and grows by precepts, adds new convictions to those born in it, and sets right what is warped.

Aut si praecepta nihil adiuvant, omnis institutio tollenda est, ipsa natura contenti esse debemus. Hoc qui dicunt, non vident alium esse ingenii mobilis et erecti, alium tardi et hebetis, utique alium alio ingeniosiorem. Ingenii vis praeceptis alitur et crescit novasque persuasiones adicit innatis et depravata corrigit.

“If a man,” he says, “does not have right doctrines, how will admonitions help him, bound as he is by what is faulty?” In this way, surely: that he may be freed of them. For the natural disposition is not extinguished in him, but darkened and pressed down. Even so it tries to rise again and strains against what is depraved, and once it has found support and is helped by precepts it grows strong — provided a long-standing plague has not infected and killed it; for that, not even the discipline of philosophy, straining with all its force, will restore. For what difference is there between the doctrines of philosophy and precepts, except that the former are general precepts, the latter particular? Both prescribe, but the one as a whole, the other piece by piece.

Si quis, inquit, non habet recta decreta, quid illum admonitiones iuvabunt vitiosis obligatum? Hoc scilicet, ut illis liberetur; non enim extincta in illo indoles naturalis est, sed obscurata et oppressa. Sic quoque temptat resurgere et contra prava nititur, nancta vero praesidium et adiuta praeceptis evalescit, si tamen illam diutina pestis non infecit nec enecuit; hanc enim ne disciplina quidem philosophiae toto inpetu suo conisa restituet. Quid enim interest inter decreta philosophiae et praecepta, nisi quod illa generalia praecepta sunt, haec specialia? Utraque res praecipit, sed altera in totum, particulatim altera.

“If a man,” he says, “has right and honorable doctrines, he is admonished to no purpose.” Not at all; for this man too has indeed been taught to do what he ought, yet he does not see it clearly enough. For we are hindered from doing what should be approved not only by our passions, but also by inexperience in finding what each case demands. We sometimes have a mind composed, but idle and unpracticed in finding the path of duties — which admonition points out.

Si quis, inquit, recta habet et honesta decreta, hic ex supervacuo monetur. Minime; nam hic quoque doctus quidem est facere quae debet, sed haec non satis perspicit. Non enim tantum adfectibus inpedimur, quo minus probanda faciamus, sed inperitia inveniendi quid quaeque res exigat. Habemus interdum compositum animum, sed residem et inexercitatum ad inveniendam officiorum viam, quam admonitio demonstrat.

“Drive out,” he says, “false opinions about goods and evils, and put true ones in their place, and admonition will have nothing left to do.” The mind is indeed ordered by that method, but not by that alone. For although it has been gathered by arguments what things are good and evil, precepts nonetheless have their own part. Both prudence and justice consist of duties; duties are arranged by precepts.

Expelle, inquit, falsas opiniones de bonis et malis, in locum autem earum veras repone, et nihil habebit admonitio, quod agat. Ordinatur sine dubio ista ratione animus, sed non ista tantum. Nam quamvis argumentis collectum sit, quae bona malaque sint, nihilominus habent praecepta partes suas. Et prudentia et iustitia officiis constat, officia praeceptis disponuntur.

Besides, the very judgment about goods and evils is confirmed by the carrying-out of duties, to which precepts lead. For the two are in agreement with each other: the former cannot go before without the latter following. And the latter keep their own order; from which it appears that the former go before.

Praeterea ipsum de malis bonisque iudicium confirmatur officiorum exsecutione, ad quam praecepta perducunt. Utraque enim inter se consentiunt; nec illa possunt praecedere, ut non haec sequantur. Et haec ordinem sequuntur suum; unde apparet illa praecedere.

“Precepts,” he says, “are infinite.” False. For about the greatest and most necessary matters they are not infinite. They have slight differences, which times, places, and persons demand; but for these too general precepts are given.

Infinita, inquit, praecepta sunt. Falsum est. Nam de maximis ac necessariis rebus non sunt infinita. Tenues autem differentias habent, quas exigunt tempora, loca, personae, sed his quoque dantur praecepta generalia.

“No one,” he says, “cures madness by precepts; therefore not malice either.” The cases are unlike. For if you have taken away madness, health returns; but if we have shut out false opinions, a clear view of what is to be done does not at once follow. And granting that it does follow, admonition will still strengthen a right judgment about goods and evils. This too is false — that precepts profit nothing with the mad. For as by themselves they are no help, so they assist the cure. Both warning and rebuke have held the mad in check. I speak now of those mad whose mind is shaken, not torn away.

Nemo, inquit, praeceptis curat insaniam; ergo ne malitiam quidem. Dissimile est. Nam si insaniam sustuleris, sanitas redit, at si falsas opiniones exclusimus, non statim sequitur dispectus rerum agendarum. Ut sequatur, tamen admonitio conroborabit rectam de bonis malisque sententiam. Illud quoque falsum est, nihil apud insanos proficere praecepta. Nam quemadmodum sola non prosunt, sic curationem adiuvant. Et denuntiatio et castigatio insanos coercuit. De illis nunc insanis loquor, quibus mens mota est, non erepta.

“Laws,” he says, “do not bring it about that we do what we ought; and what else are they than precepts mixed with threats?” First of all, laws fail to persuade for this very reason — that they threaten; but these do not compel, they entreat. Next, laws deter from crime, precepts urge toward duty. Add to this that laws too profit good morals, especially if they not only command but teach.

Leges, inquit, ut faciamus, quod oportet, non efficiunt, et quid aliud sunt quam minis mixta praecepta? Primum omnium ob hoc illae non persuadent, quia minantur, at haec non cogunt, sed exorant. Deinde leges a scelere deterrent, praecepta in officium adhortantur. His adice quod leges quoque proficiunt ad bonos mores, utique si non tantum imperant, sed docent.

On this point I differ from Posidonius, who says: “I disapprove that prefaces were added to Plato’s laws. For a law ought to be short, that the unskilled may grasp it the more easily. Let it be like a voice sent down from heaven: let it command, not argue. Nothing seems to me colder, nothing more inept, than a law with a prologue. Warn me, tell me what you would have me do; I do not learn, I obey.” But prefaces do profit; and so you will see states of bad morals using bad laws. — But they do not profit with everyone.

In hac re dissentio a Posidonio, qui inprobo, inquit, quod Platonis legibus adiecta principia sunt. Legem enim brevem esse oportet, quo facilius ab imperitis teneatur. Velut emissa divinitus vox sit; iubeat, non disputet. Nihil videtur mihi frigidius, nihil ineptius quam lex cum prologo. Mone, dic, quid me velis fecisse; non disco, sed pareo. Proficiunt vero; itaque malis moribus uti videbis civitates usas malis legibus. At non apud omnis proficiunt.

Neither does philosophy; and yet it is not useless or powerless to shape minds. What then? Is philosophy not the law of life? Grant that laws do not profit: it does not follow that admonitions do not profit either. On that reasoning, deny that consolations profit, and dissuasions, and exhortations, and reproofs, and praises. All these are kinds of admonition. Through them one arrives at the perfect state of mind.

Ne philosophia quidem; nec ideo inutilis et formandis animis inefficax est. Quid autem? Philosophia non vitae lex est? Sed putemus non proficere leges; non ideo sequitur, ut ne monitiones quidem proficiant. Aut sic et consolationes nega proficere dissuasionesque et adhortationes et obiurgationes et laudationes. Omnia ista monitionum genera sunt. Per ista ad perfectum animi statum pervenitur.

Nothing more deeply clothes the mind in the honorable, or calls the wavering and those bent toward the crooked back to the straight, than the company of good men. For little by little it sinks into the breast, and to be looked upon often, to be heard often, takes on the force of precepts. The very meeting with the wise, by Hercules, helps — and there is something you may gain from a great man even when he says nothing.

Nulla res magis animis honesta induit dubiosque et in pravum inclinabilcs inclinabiles revocat ad rectum quam bonorum virorum conversatio. Paulatim enim descendit in pectora, et vim praeceptorum obtinet frequenter aspici, frequenter audiri. Occursus mehercules ipse sapientium iuvat, et est aliquid, quod ex magno, viro vel tacente proficias.

Nor could I easily tell you how it helps, just as I understand that it has helped. Certain tiny creatures, as Phaedo says, are not felt when they bite, so fine and deceptive is their power to do harm. A swelling betrays the bite, and in the swelling itself no wound appears. The same will happen to you in the company of wise men: you will not catch how or when it helps you — that it has helped, you will catch.

Nec tibi facile dixerim quemadmodum prosit, sicut illud intellego profuisse. Minuta quaedam, ut ait Phaedon, animalia cum mordent non sentiuntur; adeo tenuis illis et fallens in periculum vis est. Tumor indicat morsum et in ipso tumore nullum vulnus apparet. Idem tibi in conversatione virorum sapientium eveniet: non deprehendes, quemadmodum aut quando tibi prosit, profuisse deprendes.

“What,” you ask, “is the point of this?” That good precepts, if they are often with you, will profit as much as good examples. Pythagoras says that a man’s mind is made other than it was in those who enter a temple and behold from close at hand the images of the gods and await the voice of some oracle.

Quorsus, inquis, hoc pertinet? Aeque praecepta bona, si saepe tecum sint, profutura quam bona exempla. Pythagoras ait alium animum fieri intrantibus templum deorumque simulacra ex vicino cernentibus et alicuius oraculi opperientibus vocem.

Nothing in excess. A greedy mind is satisfied by no gain. Expect from another what you have done to another.

Nil nimis. Avarus animus nullo satiatur lucro. Ab alio exspectes, alteri quod feceris.

If reverence reins in minds and checks vices, why should not admonition do the same? If rebuke instills shame, why should not admonition, even using bare precepts? That admonition is the more effective and pierces the deeper which supports by reason what it prescribes, which adds why each thing is to be done and what reward awaits the man who does it and obeys the precepts. If profit comes by command, it comes by admonition too; but it comes by command; therefore by admonition too.

Si reverentia frenat animos ac vitia compescit, cur non et admonitio idem possit? Si inponit pudorem castigatio, cur admonitio non faciat, etiam si nudis praeceptis utitur? Illa vero efficacior est et altius penetrat, quae adiuvat ratione quod praecipit, quae adicit, quare quidque faciendum sit et quis facientem oboedientemque praeceptis fructus exspectet. Si imperio proficitur, et admonitione; atqui proficitur imperio; ergo et admonitione.

Virtue is divided into two parts: the contemplation of the true, and action. Instruction hands down contemplation, admonition action; and right action both exercises virtue and displays it. Now if it helps the man who is about to act to have someone advise him, then the man who admonishes will help. Therefore, if right action is necessary to virtue, and admonition points out right actions, then admonition too is necessary.

In duas partes virtus dividitur, in contemplationem veri et actionem. Contemplationem institutio tradit, actionem admonitio. Virtutem et exercet et ostendit recta actio. Acturo autem si prodest qui suadet, et qui monet proderit. Ergo si recta actio virtuti necessaria est, rectas autem actiones admonitio demonstrat, et admonitio necessaria est.

Two things give the mind the most strength: faith in the truth, and confidence; both of these admonition produces. For it is believed, and, once believed, the mind conceives great spirits and is filled with confidence. Admonition, then, is not superfluous. Marcus Agrippa, a man of vast spirit — the one man among those whom the civil wars made famous and powerful who was fortunate for the public good — used to say that he owed much to this maxim: “By concord small things grow; by discord the greatest fall apart.” By it, he said, he was made the best of brothers and of friends.

Duae res plurimum roboris animo dant, fides veri et fiducia: utramque admonitio facit. Nam et creditur illi et, cum creditum est, magnos animus spiritus concipit ac fiducia impletur. Ergo admonitio non est supervacua. M. Agrippa, vir ingentis animi, qui solus ex iis, quos civilia bella claros potentesque fecerunt, felix in publicum fuit, dicere solebat multum se huic debere sententiae: Nam concordia parvae res crescunt, discordia maximae dilabuntur. Hac se aibat et fratrem et amicum optimum factum.

If maxims of this kind, taken intimately into the mind, shape it, why should not this part of philosophy, which consists of such maxims, do the same? Part of virtue consists in teaching, part in practice; you must both learn and confirm by action what you have learned. If that is so, then not only the findings of wisdom profit, but also precepts, which curb our passions and banish them as if by edict.

Si eiusmodi sententiae familiariter in animum receptae formant eum, cur non haec pars philosophiae, quae talibus sententiis constat, idem possit? Pars virtutis disciplina constat, pars exercitatione; et discas oportet et quod didicisti agendo confirmes. Quod si est, non tantum scita sapientiae prosunt, sed etiam praecepta, quae adfectus nostros velut edicto coercent et ablegant.

“Philosophy,” he says, “is divided into these: knowledge, and the disposition of the mind. For the man who has learned and grasped what is to be done and avoided is not yet wise, until his mind has been transformed into what he has learned. This third part, of prescribing, comes from both — from the doctrines and from the disposition; and so it is superfluous for completing virtue, for which those two suffice.”

Philosophia, inquit, dividitur in haec, scientiam et habitum animi. Nam qui didicit et facienda ac vitanda percepit, nondum sapiens est, nisi in ea, quae didicit, animus eius transfiguratus est. Tertia ista pars praecipiendi ex utroque est, et ex decretis et ex habitu. Itaque supervacua est ad implendam virtutem, cui duo illa sufficiunt.

By that reasoning, then, consolation too is superfluous, for it likewise comes from both — and exhortation, and persuasion, and argument itself; for this too proceeds from a composed and strong disposition of mind. But although these come from the best disposition of mind, the best disposition of mind comes from these: it both makes them and is itself made out of them.

Isto ergo modo et consolatio supervacua est, nam haec quoque ex utroque est, et adhortatio et suasio et ipsa argumentatio. Nam et haec ab habitu animi compositi validique proficiscitur. Sed quamvis ista ex optimo habitu animi veniant, optimus animi habitus ex his est; et facit illa et ex illis ipse fit.

Next, what you describe belongs to the man already perfect, who has attained the summit of human felicity. But to this one comes slowly; meanwhile the path in things to be done must be shown to the man still imperfect but advancing. This perhaps wisdom will give itself even without admonition, since it has already brought the mind to where it can be moved only toward the right. But for weaker natures it is necessary that someone go before: “This you shall avoid, this you shall do.”

Deinde istud, quod dicis, iam perfecti viri est ac summam consecuti felicitatis humanae. Ad haec autem tarde pervenitur; interim etiam inperfecto sed proficient demonstranda est in rebus agendis via. Hanc forsitan etiam sine admonitione dabit sibi ipsa sapientia, quae iam eo perduxit animum, ut moveri nequeat nisi in rectum. Inbecillioribus quidem ingeniis necessarium est aliquem praeirc praeire: hoc vitabis, hoc facies.

Besides, if he waits for the time when of himself he will know what is best to do, in the meantime he will go astray, and by going astray be hindered from reaching the point at which he can be content with himself. He must therefore be guided while he is beginning to be able to guide himself. Boys learn by a copy set before them. Their fingers are held and led by another’s hand through the shapes of the letters; then they are bidden to imitate the models set before them and to form their hand by them. So our mind, while it is schooled by a pattern, is helped.

Praeterea si expectat tempus, quo per se sciat quid optimum factu sit, interim errabit et errando inpedietur, quo minus ad illud perveniat, quo possit se esse contentus. Regi ergo debet, dum incipit posse se regere. Pueri ad praescriptum discunt. Digiti illorum tenentur et aliena manu per litterarum simulacra ducuntur, deinde imitari iubentur proposita et ad illa reformare chirographum. Sic animus noster dum eruditur ad praescriptum, iuvatur.

These are the considerations by which it is proved that this part of philosophy is not superfluous. It is asked next whether by itself it suffices to make a man wise. To that question we shall give its own day; for now, arguments aside — is it not plain that we need some advocate to prescribe against the precepts of the crowd?

Haec sunt, per quae probatur hanc philosophiae partem supervacuam non esse. Quaeritur deinde, an ad faciendum sapientem sola sufficiat. Huic quaestioni suum diem dabimus; interim omissis argumentis nonne apparet opus esse nobis aliquo advocato, qui contra populi praecepta praecipiat?

No word reaches our ears unpunished: they harm who wish us well, they harm who curse us. For the imprecations of the latter plant false fears in us, and the love of the former teaches us ill by wishing us well. For it sends us off toward distant goods, uncertain and wandering, when we might draw happiness from home.

Nulla ad aures nostras vox inpune perfertur; nocent qui optant, nocent qui execrantur. Nam et horum inprecatio falsos nobis metus inserit et illorum amor male docet bene optando. Mittit enim nos ad longinqua bona et incerta et errantia, cum possimus felicitatem domo promere.

We are not allowed, I say, to go by the straight road. Parents drag us into the crooked, slaves drag us. No one goes wrong for himself alone, but scatters his madness among those nearest, and takes in theirs by turns. And so in single men are the vices of whole peoples, because the people gave them. In making another worse, each has been made worse himself: he learned the worse, then taught it, and so that vast wickedness has been wrought, with the worst that each man knows heaped into one.

Non licet, inquam, ire recta via. Trahunt in pravum parentes, trahunt servi. Nemo errat uni sibi, sed dementiam spargit in proximos accipitque invicem. Et ideo in singulis vitia populorum sunt, quia illa populus dedit. Dum facit quisque peiorem, factus est; didicit deteriora, deinde docuit, effectaque est ingens illa nequitia congesto in unum quod cuique pessimum scitur.

Let there be, then, some guard, to keep plucking at our ear, to drive off rumors and cry out against the applauding crowds. For you are mistaken if you think the vices are born with us; they came upon us, they were heaped on us. By frequent admonitions, therefore, let the opinions that ring round us be beaten back.

Sit ergo aliquis custos et aurem subinde pervellat abigatque rumores et reclamet populis laudantibus. Erras enim, si existimas nobiscum vitia nasci; supervenerunt, ingesta sunt. Itaque monitionibus crebris opiniones, quae nos circumsonant, repellantur.

Nature binds us to no vice; she bore us whole and free. She set nothing in the open to provoke our avarice. Gold and silver she put beneath our feet, and gave us to tread down and crush whatever it is for whose sake we are trodden down and crushed. She raised our faces to the sky, and willed that whatever she had made magnificent and wondrous be seen by those who look up: the risings and settings and the rolling course of the hurrying world, which by day uncovers the things of earth and by night the things of heaven; the slow march of the stars, if you measure it against the whole, yet swiftest if you reckon what spaces they circle with never-slackened speed; the eclipses of sun and moon as they block each other in turn; and other things, next in order, worthy of wonder, whether they come on by a fixed order or, stirred by sudden causes, leap forth — the nightly trails of fire, the flashings of the sky as it opens with no blow or sound, the pillars and beams and the varied shapes of flame. All these she set to move above us.

Nulli nos vitio natura conciliat; illa integros ac liberos genuit. Nihil quo avaritiam nostram inritaret, posuit in aperto. Pedibus aurum argentumque subiecit calcandumque ac premendum dedit quidquid est propter quod calcamur ac premimur. Illa vultus nostros erexit ad caelum et quidquid magnificum mirumque fecerat, videri a suspicientibus voluit. Ortus occasusque et properantis mundi volubilem cursum, interdiu terrena aperientem, nocte caelestia, tardos siderum incessus si conpares toti, citatissimos autem si cogites, quanta spatia numquam intermissa velocitate circumeant, defectus solis ac lunae invicem obstantium, alia deinceps digna miratu, sive per ordinem subeunt sive subitis causis mota prosiliunt, ut nocturnos ignium tractus et sine ullo ictu sonituque fulgores caeli patescentis columnasque ac trabes et varia simulacra flammarum. Haec supra nos itura disposuit;

But gold and silver, and the iron that for their sake never keeps the peace, she hid away, as though they were ill entrusted to us. It is we who brought up into the light the things we would fight over; it is we who, flinging aside the weight of the earth, dug out both the causes of our perils and their instruments; we who handed our own evils over to fortune, and do not blush to hold as our highest goods what had been the lowest things of the earth.

aurum quidem et argentum et propter ista numquam pacem agens ferrum, quasi male nobis committerentur, abscondit. Nos in lucem, propter quae pugnaremus, extulimus; nos et causas periculorum nostrorum et instrumenta disiecto terrarum pondere cruimus eruimus; nos fortunae mala nostra tradidimus nec erubescimus summa apud nos haberi, quae fuerant ima terrarum.

Would you know how false a glitter has deceived your eyes? There is nothing fouler than these things while they lie sunk and wrapped in their own mire, nothing darker — and why not? — things dragged out through the blackness of the longest shafts. There is nothing more shapeless than they while they are being formed and parted from their dross. Look at the very workmen through whose hands the barren, infernal kind of earth is cleansed; you will see with what soot they are smeared.

Vis scire, quam falsus oculos tuos deceperit fulgor? Nihil est istis, quamdiu mersa et involuta caeno suo iacent, foedius, nihil obscurius, quidni? Quae per longissimorum cuniculorum tenebras extrahuntur. Nihil est illis, dum fiunt et a faece sua separantur, informius. Denique ipsos opifices intuere, per quorum manus sterile terrae genus et infernum perpurgatur; videbis quanta fuligine oblinantur.

And yet these things befoul minds more than bodies, and there is more filth in their owner than in the workman. It is necessary, then, to be admonished — to have some advocate of a sound mind, and, in so great a roar and tumult of falsehoods, to hear at last one voice. What will that voice be? Surely the one that whispers wholesome words to you, deafened as you are by the great shouting of ambition; that says:

Atqui ista magis inquinant animos quam corpora, et in possessore eorum quam in artifice plus sordium est. Necessarium itaque admoneri est, habere aliquem advocatum bonae mentis et in tanto fremitu tumultuque falsorum unam denique audire vocem. Quae erit illa vox? Ea scilicet, quae tibi tantis clamoribus ambitionis cxsurdato exsurdato salubria insusurret verba, quae dicat:

there is no reason to envy those whom the people call great and fortunate; no reason that applause should shake from you the settled habit and soundness of your mind; no reason that the man tricked out in purple under those rods should make you weary of your own tranquillity; no reason to judge a man happier because the way is cleared for him than you, whom the lictor thrusts from the footpath. If you would wield a command useful to yourself and burdensome to none, clear away your vices.

non est quod invideas istis, quos magnos felicesque populus vocat, non est quod tibi compositae mentis habitum et sanitatem plausus excutiat, non est quod tibi tranquillitatis tuae fastidium faciat ille sub illis fascibus purpura cultus, non est quod fcliciorem feliciorem eum iudices cui summovetur, quam te quem lictor semita deicit. Si vis exercere tibi utile, nulli autem grave imperium, summove vitia.

Many are found who would set fire to cities, who would lay low what was unconquerable through ages and safe through several lifetimes, who would raise a rampart level with citadels and batter with rams and engines walls drawn up to a wondrous height. Many there are who drive armies before them and press hard on the backs of fleeing enemies and come to the great sea drenched with the slaughter of nations; yet these too, in order to conquer the enemy, were conquered by desire. No one withstood them as they came; but neither had they themselves withstood ambition and cruelty — then, when they seemed to be driving others, they were being driven.

Multi inveniuntur qui ignem inferant urbibus, qui inexpugnabilia saeculis et per aliquot aetates tuta prosternant, qui aequum arcibus aggerem attollant et muros in miram altitudinem eductos arietibus ac machinis quassent. Multi sunt qui ante se agant agmina et tergis hostium graves instent et ad mare magnum perfusi caede gentium veniant; sed hi quoque, ut vincerent hostem, cupiditate victi sunt. Nemo illis venientibus restitit, sed nec ipsi ambitioni crudelitatique restiterant; tunc, cum agere alios visi sunt, agebantur.

Madness was driving the unhappy Alexander to lay waste what was another’s, and was sending him off into the unknown. Do you think a man sane who begins with the ruin of Greece, in which he was schooled? Who snatches from each what is best to him — bids Sparta serve, Athens fall silent? Not content with the wreck of so many cities, which Philip had either conquered or bought, he flings down others in one place and another, and carries his arms round the whole world; nor does his cruelty halt anywhere, weary, in the manner of savage beasts that bite more than their hunger demands.

Agebat infelicem Alexandrum furor aliena vastandi et ad ignota mittebat. An tu putas sanum, qui a Graeciae primum cladibus, in qua eruditus est, incipit? Qui quod cuique optimum est, eripit, Lacedaemona servire iubet, Athenas tacere? Non contentus tot civitatium strage, quas aut vicerat Philippus aut emerat, alias alio loco proicit et toto orbe arma circumfert, nec subsistit usquam lassa crudelitas immanium ferarum modo, quae plus quam exigit fames mordent.

Already he has flung many kingdoms into one kingdom; already Greeks and Persians fear the same man; already nations free even under Darius take on the yoke: yet he goes on beyond the ocean and the sun; he is indignant to turn his victory aside from the tracks of Hercules and Liber; he readies violence against nature herself. He does not wish to go, but cannot stand still — no otherwise than weights flung headlong, whose only end of going is to have come to rest.

Iam in unum regnum multa regna coniecit; iam Graeci Persaeque eundem timent; iam etiam a Dareo liberae nationes iugum accipiunt: it tamen ultra oceanum solemque, indignatur ab Herculis Liberique vestigiis victoriam flectere, ipsi naturae vim parat. Non ille ire vult, sed non potest stare, non aliter quam in praeceps deiecta pondera, quibus eundi finis est iacuisse.

Not even Gnaeus Pompey was urged to foreign and civil wars by valor or reason, but by an insane love of false greatness. Now he went against Spain and the arms of Sertorius, now to bind up the pirates and bring peace to the seas.

Ne Gnaeo quidem Pompeio externa bella ac domestica virtus aut ratio suadebat, sed insanus amor magnitudinus magnitudinis falsae. Modo in Hispaniam et Sertoriana arma, modo ad colligandos piratas ac maria pacanda vadebat.

These causes were spread as a pretext for prolonging his power. What dragged him into Africa, into the north, against Mithridates and Armenia and every corner of Asia? A boundless craving to grow greater, since to himself alone he seemed not great enough. What sent Gaius Caesar against his own destiny and the state’s alike? Glory and ambition and no measure to rising above the rest. He could not bear one man before him, though the state bore two above itself.

Hae praetexebantur causae ad continuandam potentiam. Quid illum in Africam, quid in septentrionem, quid in Mithridaten et Armeniam et omnis Asiae angulos traxit? Infinita scilicet cupido crescendi, cum sibi uni parum magnus videretur. Quid C. Caesarem in sua fata pariter ac publica inmisit? Gloria et ambitio et nullus supra ceteros eminendi modus. Unum ante se ferre non potuit, cum res publica supra se duos ferret.

What — do you think Gaius Marius, consul once (for one consulship he received, the rest he seized), when he cut down the Teutones and the Cimbri, when he hunted Jugurtha through the deserts of Africa, sought out so many dangers at the prompting of valor? Marius led armies; ambition led Marius.

Quid, tu C. Marium semel consulem—unum enim consulatum accepit, ceteros rapuit—cum Teutonos Cimbrosque concideret, cum Iugurtham per Africae deserta sequeretur, tot pericula putas adpetisse virtutis instinctu? Marius exercitus, Marium ambitio ducebat.

These men, while they shook all things, were themselves shaken, in the manner of whirlwinds, which whirl round what they have caught up but are themselves first whirled, and rush on with the greater force for having no rule over themselves; and so, after they have been a ruin to many, they too feel that pestilent power by which they harmed the most. You have no reason to believe that anyone becomes happy by another’s unhappiness.

Isti cum omnia concuterent, concutiebantur turbinum more, qui rapta convolvunt, sed ipsi ante volvuntur et ob hoc maiore impetu incurrunt, quia nullum illis sui regimen est ideoque cum multis fuerunt malo, pestiferam illam vim, qua plerisque nocuerunt, ipsi quoque sentiunt. Non est quod credas quemquam fieri aliena infelicitate felicem.

All these examples, thrust upon our eyes and ears, must be unwoven, and the breast drained of the evil talk that fills it. Virtue must be brought into the place they held, to root out lies and the things that please against the truth, to part us from the people, in whom we trust too much, and give us back to sound opinions. For this is wisdom: to be turned back to nature and restored to the place from which the public error had driven us.

Omnia ista exempla, quae oculis atque auribus nostris ingeruntur, retexenda sunt et plenum malis sermonibus pectus exhauriendum. Inducenda in occupatum locum virtus, quae mendacia et contra verum placentia exstirpet, quae nos a populo, cui nimis credimus, separet ac sinceris opinionibus reddat. Hoc est enim sapientia, in naturam converti et eo restitui, unde publicus error expulerit.

A great part of soundness is to have left the promoters of madness behind, and to have gone far off from that mutually poisonous gathering. To know this is true, look how differently each man lives for the public and for himself. Solitude is no schoolmistress of innocence in itself, nor do the fields teach frugality; but where witness and onlooker have withdrawn, the vices subside, whose whole fruit is to be pointed at and gazed upon.

Magna pars sanitatis est hortatores insaniae reliquisse et ex isto coitu invicem noxio procul abisse. Hoc ut esse verum scias, aspice, quanto aliter unusquisque populo vivat, aliter sibi. Non est per se magistra innocentiae solitudo nec frugalitatem docent rura, sed ubi testis ac spectator abscessit, vitia subsidunt, quorum monstrari et conspici fructus est.

Who puts on the purple he would show to no one? Who sets out a secret feast on gold? Who, flung down beneath the shade of some country tree, alone unfolds the whole pageant of his luxury? No man is lavish for his own eyes, nor even for those of a few or of his household, but spreads out the apparatus of his vices to the measure of the watching crowd.

Quis eam, quam nulli ostenderet, induit purpuram? Quis posuit secrctam secretam in auro dapem? Quis sub alicuius arboris rusticae proiectus umbra luxuriae suae pompam solus explicuit? Nemo oculis suis lautus est, ne paucorum quidem aut familiarium, sed apparatum vitiorum suorum pro modo turbae spectantis expandit.

So it is: the goad of everything we run mad for is the admirer and the witness. You will bring it about that we do not crave, if you bring it about that we do not display. Ambition and luxury and willfulness want a stage: you will cure these things if you hide them.

Ita est: inritamentum est omnium, in quae insanimus, admirator et conscius. Ne concupiscamus efficies, si ne ostendamus effeceris. Ambitio et luxuria et inpotentia scaenam desiderant: sanabis ista, si absconderis.

And so, if we are set in the midst of a city’s roar, let a monitor stand at our side, and against those who exalt great fortunes let him praise the man rich on little and measuring his wealth by use. Against those who lift up favor and power, let him himself look up to leisure given over to letters, and a mind turned back from outward things to its own.

Itaque si in medio urbium fremitu conlocati sumus, stet ad latus monitor et contra laudatores ingentium patrimoniorum laudet parvo divitem et usu opes metientem. Contra illos, qui gratiam ac potentiam attollunt, otium ipse suspiciat traditum litteris et animum ab externis ad sua reversum.

Let him show that those whom the crowd’s verdict counts blessed stand trembling and thunderstruck on their envied height, and hold a far different opinion of themselves than others hold of them. For what seems lofty to others is sheer cliff to themselves. And so they are unstrung and quake whenever they have looked down from the precipice of their own greatness. For they think of the various chances, and how on a height things are most slippery.

Ostendat ex constitutione vulgi beatos in illo invidioso fastigio suo trementes et adtonitos longeque aliam de se opinionem habentes quam ab aliis habetur. Nam quae aliis excelsa videntur, ipsis praerupta sunt. Itaque exanimantur et trepidant, quotiens despexerunt in illud magnitudinis suae praeceps. Cogitant enim varios casus et in sublimi maxime lubricos.

Then they dread the things they sought, and the felicity that makes them burdensome to others lies the heavier on themselves. Then they praise mild leisure that is its own master; they hate the glitter, and seek a way of flight while things still stand. Then at last you may see men philosophizing out of fear, and sound counsels in a sickly fortune. For as though these were contraries — good fortune and a good mind — so we grow wiser in adversity; prosperity carries off the straight. Farewell.

Tunc adpetita formidant et quae illos graves aliis reddit, gravior ipsis felicitas incubat. Tunc laudant otium lene et sui iuris, odio est fulgor et fuga a rebus adhuc stantibus quaeritur. Tunc demum videas philosophantis metu et aegrae fortunae sana consilia. Nam quasi ista inter se contraria sint, bona fortuna et mens bona, ita melius in malis sapimus; secunda rectum auferunt. Vale.

You ask me to bring forward at once, and write to you, what I had said should be put off to its own day: whether this part of philosophy which the Greeks call paraenetic and we call preceptive is enough to bring wisdom to its completion. I know you will take it in good part if I say no. The more, then, do I promise it, and I will not let a common saying go to waste: afterward do not ask for what you would not wish to obtain.

Petis a me, ut id, quod in diem suum dixeram debere differri, repraesentem et scribam tibi, an haec pars philosophiae, quam Graeci paraeneticen vocant, nos praeceptivam dicimus, satis sit ad consummandam sapientiam. Scio te in bonam partem accepturum si negavero. Eo magis promitto et verbum publicum perire non patior: postea noli rogare, quod inpetrare nolueris.

For sometimes we beg earnestly for what we would refuse if someone offered it. Whether this be fickleness or fawning, it must be punished by readiness to grant. We wish to seem to want many things which we do not want. A reciter brings a huge history, written in the tiniest hand, very tightly rolled, and when a great part has been read through says, “I will stop, if you wish.” “Read, read!” is shouted by those who long for him to fall silent then and there. Often we want one thing and pray for another, and tell the truth not even to the gods; but the gods either do not hear, or take pity.

Interdum enim enixe petimus id, quod recusaremus, si quis offerret. Haec sive levitas est sive vernilitas, punienda est annuendi facilitate. Multa videri volumus velle, sed nolumus. Recitator historiam ingentem attulit minutissime scriptam, artissimc artissime plicatam, et magna parte perlecta desinam, inquit, si vultis. Adclamatur recita, recita ab iis, qui illum ommutescere illic cupiunt. Saepe aliud volumus, aliud optamus et verum ne dis quidem dicimus, sed di aut non exaudiunt aut miserentur.

I, with pity laid aside, will avenge myself and thrust upon you a huge letter; and if you read it unwilling, say, “I have brought this on myself,” and count yourself among those whom a wife married with great parade torments, among those whom riches won by the utmost sweat plague, among those whom honors sought by every art and effort rack — and the rest who possess their own evils.

Ego me omissa misericordia vindicabo et tibi ingentem epistulam inpingam, quam tu si invitus leges, dicito: ego mihi hoc contraxi teque inter illos numera, quos uxor magno ducta ambitu torquet, inter illos, quos divitiae per summum adquisitae sudorem male habent, inter illos, quos honores nulla non arte. atque opera petiti discruciant, et ceteros malorum suorum compotes.

But to leave the preface and come to the matter itself: “The happy life,” they say, “consists of right actions; to right actions precepts lead; therefore precepts suffice for the happy life.” Precepts do not always lead to right actions, but only when the nature is compliant; sometimes they are applied in vain, if depraved opinions beset the mind.

Sed ut omisso principio rem ipsam adgrediar, beata, inquiunt, vita constat ex actionibus rectis; ad actiones rectas praecepta perducunt; ergo ad beatam vitam praecepta sufficiunt. Non semper ad actiones rectas praecepta perducunt, sed cum obsequens ingenium est; aliquando frustra admoventur, si animum opiniones obsident pravae.

Then, even if men act rightly, they do not know that they act rightly. For no one, unless formed from the beginning and composed throughout by reason, can carry out all the measures, so as to know when a thing ought to be done, and how far, and with whom, and in what way, and why. He cannot strive for the honorable with his whole soul, nor even constantly or gladly, but will look back, will hesitate.

Deinde etiam si recte faciunt, nesciunt facere se recte. Non potest enim quisquam nisi ab initio formatus et tota ratione compositus omnes exequi numeros, ut sciat, quando oporteat et in quantum et cum quo et quemadmodum et quare. Non potest toto animo honesta conari, ne constanter quidem aut libenter, sed respiciet, sed haesitabit.

“If an honorable action,” he says, “comes from precepts, then precepts are abundantly enough for the happy life; but the former is so — therefore so is the latter.” To this we shall reply that honorable actions are done by precepts, but not by precepts alone.

Si honesta, inquit, actio ex praeceptis venit, ad beatam vitam praecepta abunde sunt; atqui est illud, ergo et hoc. His respondebimus actiones honestas et praeceptis fieri, non tantum praeceptis.

“If the other arts,” he says, “are content with precepts, wisdom too will be content; for this too is an art of living.” And yet the man who gives precepts makes the pilot: “Move the rudder so, take in the sails so, use a following wind so, resist an adverse one so, claim a doubtful and shared one for yourself so.” Precepts shape the other craftsmen too; therefore they will be able to do the same in this craftsman of living.

Si aliae, inquit, artes contentae sunt praeceptis, contenta erit et sapientia, nam et haec ars vitae est. Atqui gubernatorem facit ille, qui praecipit: sic move gubernaculum, sic vela summitte, sic secundo vento utere, sic adverso resiste, sic dubium communemque tibi vindica. Alios quoque artifices praecepta conformant; ergo in hoc idem poterunt artifice vivendi.

All those arts are busied about the instruments of life, not about the whole of life. And so many things from without hold them back and hinder them — hope, desire, fear. But this art, which has declared itself the art of life, can be barred by nothing from exercising itself; for it scatters the hindrances and throws aside what blocks it. Would you know how unlike is the condition of the other arts and of this? In those it is more excusable to err by will than by chance; in this the greatest fault is to go wrong on purpose.

Omnes istae artes circa instrumenta vitae occupatae sunt, non circa totam vitam. Itaque multa illas inhibent extrinsecus et inpediunt, spes, cupiditas, timor. At haec, quae artem vitae professa est, nulla re, quo minus se exerceat, vetari potest; discutit enim inpedimenta et traicit obstantia. Vis scire, quam dissimilis sit aliarum artium condicio et huius? In illis excusatius est voluntate peccare quam casu, in hac maxima culpa est sponte delinquere.

What I mean is this. A grammarian will not blush at a solecism if he made it knowingly — he will blush if unknowingly; a physician who does not perceive that his patient is failing sins more, as far as his art goes, than if he pretends not to perceive it. But in this art of living the fault of those who err willingly is the baser. Add now that most of the arts too — indeed the most liberal of all — have their own doctrines, not only precepts, as does medicine. And so there is one school of Hippocrates, another of Asclepiades, another of Themison.

Quod dico, tale est. Grammaticus non erubescet soloecismo, si sciens fecit, erubescet, si nesciens; medicus si deficere aegrum non intellegit, quantum ad artem, magis peccat quam si se intellegere dissimulat. At in hac arte vivendi turpior volentium culpa est. Adice nunc, quod artes quoque pleraeque, immo ex omnibus liberalissimae habent decreta sua, non tantum praecepta, sicut medicina. Itaque alia est Hippocratis secta, alia Asclepiadis, alia Themisonis.

Besides, no contemplative art is without its doctrines, which the Greeks call dogmata, and we may call decrees, or tenets, or holdings — which you will find both in geometry and in astronomy. But philosophy is both contemplative and active; it looks, and at the same time acts. For you are wrong if you think it promises you only earthly tasks; it breathes higher. “I scan,” it says, “the whole universe, nor do I keep myself within mortal fellowship, content to advise and dissuade you. Great things call me, and things set above you:”

Praeterea nulla ars contemplativa sine decretis suis est, quae Graeci vocant dogmata, nobis vel decreta licet appellare vel scita vel placita, quae et in geometria et in astronomia invenies. Philosophia autem et contemplativa est et activa; spectat simul agitque. Erras enim, si tibi illam putas tantum terrestres operas promittere; altius spirat. Totum, inquit, mundum scrutor nec me intra contubernium mortale contineo suadere vobis ac dissuadere contenta. Magna me vocant supraque vos posita:

For I shall begin to discourse to you of the highest reckoning of heaven and of the gods, and lay open the first beginnings of things — whence nature creates all things, increases and feeds them, and into what same nature dissolves them again when they are destroyed.

Nam tibi de summa caeli ratione deumque Disserere incipiam et rerum primordia pandam; Unde omnis natura creet res, auctet alatque, Quoque eadem rursus natura perempta resolvat,

What of this — that no one will perform even the things to be done in due form, except the man to whom that reason has been handed by which in each matter he may carry out all the measures of duty? These he will not keep who has received precepts for the present case, not for every case. By themselves they are feeble and, so to speak, rootless, which are given for the parts. It is the doctrines that fortify, that guard our security and tranquillity, that embrace at once the whole of life and the whole nature of things. Between the doctrines of philosophy and precepts there is the same difference as between elements and members: the latter depend on the former; the former are the causes both of these and of all things.

Quid? Quod facienda quoque nemo rite obibit nisi is, cui ratio erit tradita, qua in quaque re omnes officiorum numeros exequi possit, quos non servabit, qui in rem praesentem praecepta acceperit, non in omnem. Inbecilla sunt per se et, ut ita dicam, sine radice, quae partibus dantur. Decreta sunt, quae muniant, quae securitatem nostram tranquillitatemque tueantur, quae totam vitam totamque rerum naturam simul contineant. Hoc interest inter decreta philosophiae et praecepta, quod inter elementa et membra; haec ex illis dependent, illa et horum causae sunt et omnium.

“The old wisdom,” he says, “prescribed nothing but what to do and what to avoid, and then men were far better. Once the learned came forth, the good fell short. For that simple and open virtue has turned into an obscure and subtle science, and we are taught to dispute, not to live.”

Antiqua, inquit, sapientia nihil aliud quam facienda ac vitanda praecepit, et tunc longe meliores erant viri. Postquam docti prodierunt, boni desunt. Simplex enim illa et aperta virtus in obscuram et sollertem scientiam versa est docemurque disputare, non vivere.

There was without doubt, as you say, that old wisdom, at its very birth as raw as the other arts, whose refinement grew in their progress. But there was not yet need of careful remedies. Wickedness had not yet risen so high nor spread itself so wide. Simple remedies could withstand simple vices; now the defenses must be the more laborious, the more violent are the assaults by which we are attacked.

Fuit sine dubio, ut dicitis, vetus illa sapientia cum maxime nascens rudis non minus quam ceterae artes, quarum in processu subtilitas crevit. Sed ne opus quidem adhuc erat remediis diligentibus. Nondum in tantum nequitia surrexerat nec tam late se sparserat. Poterant vi tus simplicibus obstare remedia simplicia; nunc necesse est tanto operosiora esse munimenta, quanto vehementiora sunt, quibus petimur.

Medicine was once the knowledge of a few herbs, by which the flowing blood was staunched and wounds closed; then little by little it came to this so manifold variety. Nor is it strange that it had less to do then, when bodies were still firm and solid, and food was easy and not corrupted by art and pleasure; for after it began to be sought not to take away hunger but to whet it, and a thousand seasonings were invented to rouse greed, the things that were nourishment to the hungry became burdens to the full.

Medicina quondam paucarum fuit scientia herbarum, quibus sisteretur fluens sanguis, vulnera coirent; paulatim deinde in hanc pervenit tam multiplicem varietatem. Nec est mirum tunc illam minus negotii habuisse firmis adhuc solidisque corporibus et facili cibo nec per artem voluptatemque corrupto, qui postquam coepit non ad tollendam, sed ad inritandam famem quaeri et inventae sunt mille conditurae, quibus aviditas excitaretur, quae desiderantibus ali menta erant, onera sunt plenis.

Hence pallor, and the trembling of sinews soaked in wine, and a leanness more pitiable from indigestion than from hunger; hence the uncertain, faltering feet and the perpetual staggering as in drunkenness itself; hence the fluid let in beneath the whole skin and the distended belly while it ill accustoms itself to take in more than it could; hence the overflow of livid bile and the discolored face and the rot of things putrefying within themselves, and fingers shriveled with stiffening joints, and the numbness of nerves lying senseless, or the throbbing of those that quiver without pause.

Inde pallor et nervorum vino madentium tremor et miserabilior ex cruditatibus quam ex fame macies. Inde incerti labantium pedes et semper qualis in ipsa ebrietate titubatio. Inde in totam cutem umor admissus distentusque venter, dum male adsueseit adsuescit plus eapere capere quam poterat. Inde suffusio luridae bilis et decolor vultus tabesque in se putreseentium putrescentium et retorridi digiti articulis obrigeseentibus obrigescentibus nervorumque sine sensu iacentium torpor aut palpitatio sine intermissione vibrantium.

Why should I speak of dizziness of the head? Why of the torments of eyes and ears, and the gnawing of the seething brain, and all the passages by which we are unburdened, afflicted with inner ulcers? Besides, there are countless kinds of fevers — some raging with a violent onset, some creeping with a thin plague, some coming on with shivering and a great shaking of the limbs.

Quid capitis vertigines dicam? Quid oculorum auriumque tormenta et cerebri exaestuantis verminationes et omnia, per quae exoneramur, internis uleeribus ulceribus adfecta? Innumerabilia praeterea febrium genera, aliarum impetu saevientium, aliarum tenui peste repentium, aliarum eum horrore et multa membrorum quassatione venientium?

Why should I tell of the other countless diseases, the punishments of luxury? Free from these evils were men who had not yet unstrung themselves with delicacies, who commanded themselves, served themselves. They hardened their bodies with work and real toil, worn out by running, or by the hunt, or by turning the soil. Food awaited them that could please none but the hungry. And so there was no need of so great a furniture of physicians, nor of so many instruments and boxes. Their health was simple, from a simple cause; many dishes made many diseases.

Quid alios referam innumerabiles morbos, supplicia luxuriae? Immunes erant ab istis malis, qui nondum se deliciis solverant, qui sibi imperabant, sibi ministrabant. Corpora opere ac vero labore durabant aut cursu defatigati aut venatu aut tellure versanda. Exeipiebat excipiebat illos eibus cibus, qui nisi esurientibus placere non posset. Itaque nihil opus erat tam magna medicorum supelleetile supellectile nee nec tot ferramentis atque pyxidibus. Simplex erat ex causa simplici valitudo; multos morbos multa ferieula fericula feeerunt fecerunt.

See how great a mass of things, soon to pass through one gullet, luxury jumbles together — the ravager of lands and sea. It must be, then, that things so diverse quarrel with one another and, ill swallowed, are ill digested, each straining a different way. Nor is it strange that the disease from discordant food is inconstant and various, and that what is forced together from nature’s warring parts floods back. Hence we sicken with as many kinds as we live by.

Vide, quantum rerum per unam gulam transiturarum permisceat luxuria, terrarum marisque vastatrix. Nceesse necesse est itaque inter se tam diversa dissideant et hausta male male digerantur aliis alio nitentibus. Nec mirum, quod inconstans variusque ex discordi cibo morbus est et illa ex contrariis naturae partibus in eundem compulsa redundant. Inde tam multo aegrotamus genere quam vivimus.

That greatest of physicians and founder of this science said that women lose neither their hair nor the use of their feet; yet they are robbed of their hair and sick in their feet. Women’s nature is not changed, but conquered; for since they have matched the license of men, they have matched too the bodily ills of men.

Maximus ille medicorum et huius scientiae conditor feminis nec capillos defluere dixit nec pedes laborare; atqui et capillis destituuntur et pedibus aegrae sunt. Non mutata feminarum natura, sed victa est; nam cum virorum licentiam aequaverint, corporum quoque virilium incommoda aequarunt.

No less do they stay awake at night, no less do they drink, and challenge men in oil and in wine; no less do they bring up what they have crammed into reluctant bellies and measure back all their wine by vomiting; no less do they gnaw snow, the solace of a burning stomach. In lust indeed they do not yield even to males — born to be passive (may the gods and goddesses destroy them!), they have devised so perverse a kind of unchastity that they mount men. What wonder, then, that the greatest of physicians and most skilled in nature is caught in a falsehood, when so many women are gouty and bald? They have lost the privilege of their sex by their vices and, because they have put off the woman, are condemned to the diseases of men.

Non minus pervigilant, non minus potant, et oleo et mero viros provocant; aeque invitis ingesta visceribus per os reddunt et vinum omne vomitu remetiuntur; aeque nivem rodunt, solacium stomachi aestuantis. Libidine vero ne maribus quidem cedunt, pati natae, di illas deaeque male perdant! Adeo perversum commentae genus inpudicitiae viros ineunt. Quid ergo mirandum est maximum medicorum ac naturae peritissimum in mendacio prendi, cum tot feminae podagricae calvaeque sint? Beneficium sexus sui vitiis perdiderunt et, quia feminam exuerant, damnatae sunt morbis virilibus.

The old physicians did not know how to give food more often and to prop the failing veins with wine; they did not know to let blood and to ease a long sickness with bath and sweats; they did not know to recall the latent force, seated in the middle, to the extremities by binding the legs and arms. There was no need to look about for many kinds of remedies, when the kinds of danger were very few.

Antiqui medici nesciebant dare cibum saepius et vino fulcire venas cadentes, nesciebant sanguinem mittere et diutinam aegrotationem balneo sudoribusque laxare, nesciebant crurum vinculo brachiorumque latentem vim et in medio sedentem ad extrema revocare. Non erat necesse circumspicere multa auxiliorum genera, eum essent periculorum paucissima.

But now, how far have the evils of ill health advanced! This is the interest we pay on pleasures craved beyond measure and right. You will not wonder that diseases are countless: count the cooks. All study is at a standstill, and the professors of the liberal arts preside, with no audience, over deserted corners. In the schools of the rhetoricians and philosophers is solitude; but how crowded are the kitchens, how great a throng of youth presses round the hearths of the gluttons!

Nunc vero quam longe processerunt mala valitudinis! Has usuras voluptatium pendimus ultra modum fasque concupitarum. Innumerabiles esse morbos non miraberis: cocos numera. Cessat omne studium et liberalia professi sine ulla frequentia desertis angulis praesident. In rhetorum ac philosophorum scholis solitudo est; at quam celebres culinae sunt, quanta circa nepotum focos iuventus premitur!

I pass over the troops of unhappy boys, whom after the banquets are over other outrages of the bedchamber await. I pass over the ranks of catamites, sorted by nation and color so that all may have the same smoothness, the same measure of first down, the same fashion of hair, lest any whose locks are straighter be mixed with the curly. I pass over the crowd of bakers, I pass over the throng of servers, who at a given signal scatter to bring in the dinner. Good gods, how many men one belly keeps busy! What — do you think those mushrooms, that voluntary poison, work no hidden mischief, even if they were not instant in effect?

Transeo puerorum infelieium infelicium greges, quos post transacta convivia aliae cubiculi contumeliae exspectant. Transeo agmina exoletorum per nationes coloresque discripta, ut eadem omnibus levitas sit, eadem primae mensura lanuginis, eadem species capillorum, ne quis, eui cui rectior est coma, crispulis misceatur. Transeo pistorum turbam, transeo ministratorum, per quos signo dato ad inferendam eenam cenam discurritur. Di boni, quantum hominum unus venter exercet! Quid? Tu illos boletos, voluntarium venenum, nihil occulti operis iudicas facere, etiam si praesentanei non fuerunt?

What — do you not think that summer snow draws a callus over the liver? What — those oysters, the most sluggish flesh, fattened on mud, do you reckon they bring no muddy heaviness? What — that allied garum, the precious gore of bad fish, do you not believe it burns the vitals with its salt corruption? What — those festering morsels, all but carried into the mouth straight from the fire, do you judge they are quenched without harm in the very entrails? How foul, then, and pestilent are the belchings, what disgust at themselves in those breathing out yesterday’s debauch! You may know that what is taken in rots rather than is digested.

Quid? Tu illam aestivarn aestivam nivem non putas callum iocineribus obducere? Quid? Illa ostrea, inertissimam earnem carnem caeno saginatam, nihil existimas limosae gravitatis inferre? Quid? Illud sociorum garum, pretiosam malorum piscium saniem, non credis urere salsa tabe praecordia? Quid? Illa purulenta et quae tantum non ex ipso igne in os transferuntur, iudicas sine noxa in ipsis visceribus extingui? Quam foedi itaque pestilentesque ructus sunt, quantum fastidium sui exhalantibus crapulam veterem! Scias putreseere putrescere sumpta, non concoqui.

I remember there was once, much talked of, a famous platter, into which a cookshop hastening to its own ruin had heaped whatever among the elegant is wont to draw out the day: scallops and spondyls and oysters trimmed to just where they are eaten, parted by sea-urchins set between. The whole had been paved with mullets cut up and boned.

Memini fuisse quondam in sermone nobilem patinam, in quam quicquid apud lautos solet diem ducere, properans in damnum suum popina congesserat; veneriae spondylique et ostrea eatenus cireumcisa circumcisa, qua eduntur, intervenientibus distinguebantur echinis. Totam dissecti structique sine ullis ossibus mulli constraverant.

It is now a weariness to eat single things; flavors are forced into one. At dinner is done what should have been done in the belly. I expect soon that the food will be served already chewed. And how little short of this is it to take out the shells and bones and make the cook do the work of teeth? “It is a bother to be luxurious dish by dish; let everything be served at once and turned into the same flavor. Why should I reach out my hand for one thing? Let many come together; let the ornaments of many courses meet and cohere.”

Piget esse iam singula; coguntur in unum sapores. In cena fit, quod fieri debebat in ventre. Expecto iam, ut mandueata manducata ponantur. Quantulo autem hoc minus est, festas excerpere atque ossa et dentium opera cocum fungi? Gravest luxuriari per singula; omnia semel et in eundem saporem versa ponantur. Quare ego ad unam rem manum porrigam? Plura veniant simul, multorum ferculorum ornamenta coeant et cohaereant.

Let those, then, who used to say that ostentation and glory were sought from such things know at once that these are not for show, but given over to appetite. Let the things usually set out in order lie side by side, drenched in one sauce. Let there be no difference: let oysters, urchins, spondyls, mullets be served mixed and boiled together. No more confused would be the food of those who are vomiting.

Sciant protinus hi, qui iactationem ex istis peti et gloriam aiebant, non ostendi ista, sed conscientiae dari. Pariter sint, quae disponi solent, uno iure perfusa. Nihil intersit: ostrea, echini, spondyli, mulli perturbati concoctique ponantur. Non esset confusior vomentium cibus.

As these things are tangled, so from them are born diseases not single, but inexplicable, diverse, manifold; against which medicine too has begun to arm itself with many kinds, many observations. The same I say to you of philosophy. It was once simpler, among those who sinned in lesser ways and were curable even with light care; against so great an overthrow of morals all things must be tried. And would that at last this plague might so be checked!

Quomodo ista perplexa sunt, sic ex istis non singulares morbi nascuntur, sed inexplicabiles, diversi, multiformes, adversus quos et medicina armare se coepit multis generibus, multis observationibus. Idem tibi de philosophia dico. Fuit aliquando simplicior inter minora peccantes et levi quoque cura remediabiles; adversus tantam morum eversionem omnia conanda sunt. Et utinam sic denique lues ista vindicetur!

Not in private only, but in public we rave. Murders and single killings we restrain; but what of wars and the glorious crime of slaughtered nations? Neither avarice nor cruelty knows a measure. And so long as these are done by stealth and by individuals, they are less harmful and less monstrous; by decrees of the senate and votes of the people savageries are practiced, and what is forbidden in private is commanded in public.

Non privatim solum, sed publice furimus. Homicidia compescimus et singulas caedes; quid bella et occisarum gentium gloriosum scelus? Non avaritia, non crudelitas modum novit. Et ista quamdiu furtim et a singulis fiunt, minus noxia minusque monstruosa sunt; ex senatus consultis plebisque scitis saeva exercentur et publice iubentur vetata privatim.

The things that, done in secret, men would pay for with their heads, we praise because they were done by men in uniform. It does not shame men, the gentlest kind, to delight in one another’s blood, to wage wars and hand them down to be waged by their children — though among the dumb beasts even there is peace.

Quae clam commissa capite luerent, tum quia paludati fecere, laudamus. Non pudet homines, mitissimum genus, gaudere sanguine alterno et bella gerere gerendaque liberis tradere, cum inter se etiam mutis ac feris pax sit.

Against a frenzy so powerful and so widely unfolded, philosophy has become more laborious and has taken on for itself as much strength as had accrued to the things against which it was preparing. It was an easy matter to upbraid those who indulged in wine and craved daintier food; the mind did not have to be brought back to frugality by great force, when it had departed but a little from it.

Adversus tam potentem explicitumque late furorem operosior philosophia facta est et tantum sibi virium sumpsit, quantum iis, adversus quae parabatur, accesserat. Expeditum erat obiurgare indulgentes mero et petentes delicatiorem cibum; non erat animus ad frugalitatem magna vi reducendus, a qua paullum discesserat:

Now there is need of swift hands, now of a master’s art. Pleasure is sought from every quarter. No vice keeps within itself; luxury rushes headlong into avarice. Forgetfulness of the honorable has come over us. Nothing is base whose price is pleasing. Man, a thing sacred to man, is now killed for sport and jest; and one whom it was a sin to train for inflicting and receiving wounds is now brought out naked and unarmed, and a man’s death is spectacle enough.

Nunc manibus rapidis opus est, nunc arte magistra. Voluptas ex omni quaeritur. Nullum intra se manet vitium; in avaritiam luxuria praeceps est. Honesti oblivio invasit. Nihil turpest, cuius placet pretium. Homo, sacra res homini, iam per lusum ac iocum occiditur et quem erudiri ad inferenda accipiendaque vulnera nefas erat, is iam nudus inermisque producitur satisque spectaculi ex homine mors est.

In this perversity of morals, then, something more vehement than usual is wanted, to scatter the inveterate evils; we must work by doctrines, that the received persuasion of falsehoods may be torn out by the roots. If to these we join precepts, consolations, exhortations, they will be able to prevail; by themselves they are ineffective.

In hac ergo morum perversitate desideratur solito vehementius aliquid, quod mala inveterata discutiat; decretis agendum est, ut revellatur penitus falsorum recepta persuasio. His si adiunxerimus praecepta, consolationes, adhortationes, poterunt valere; per se inefficaces sunt.

If we wish to keep men bound to us and tear them from the evils that already hold them, let them learn what is evil, what good. Let them know that all things except virtue change their name, becoming now evil, now good. As the first bond of military service is the oath, the love of the standards, the wickedness of desertion, and then the rest are easily required and laid upon men once sworn in, so in those whom you would lead to the happy life: the first foundations must be laid and virtue worked in. Let them be held by a kind of religious awe of it; let them love it; let them wish to live with it, refuse to live without it.

Si volumus habere obligatos et malis, quibus iam tenentur, avellere, discant, quid malum, quid bonum sit. Sciant omnia praeter virtutem mutare nomen, modo mala fieri, modo bona. Quemadmodum primum militiae vinculum est religio et signorum amor et deserendi nefas, tunc deinde facile cetera exiguntur mandanturque iusiurandum adactis, ita in iis, quos velis ad beatam vitam perducere: prima fundamenta iacienda sunt et insinuanda virtus. Huius quadam superstitione teneantur; hanc ament; cum hac vivere velint, sine hac nolint.

What then? Have not some, without subtle schooling, turned out upright and made great progress, obeying bare precepts only? I grant it; but they had a happy nature, and snatched what was wholesome in passing. For just as the immortal gods learned no virtue, being born with all of it, and it is part of their nature to be good, so some men, allotted an excellent disposition, arrive at the things usually taught without long tutoring, and embraced the honorable the moment they heard it — whence those natures so greedy of virtue, or fertile of themselves. But for the dull and obtuse, or those beset by bad habit, the rust of their minds must long be rubbed away.

Quid ergo? Non quidam sine institutione subtili evaserunt probi magnosque profectus adsecuti sunt, dum nudis tantum praeceptis obsecuntur? Fateor, sed felix illis ingenium fuit et salutaria in transitu rapuit. Nam ut di inmortales nullam didicere virtutem cum omni editi et pars naturae eorum est bonos esse, ita quidam ex hominibus egregiam sortiti indolem in ea, quae tradi solent, perveniunt sine longo magisterio et honesta complexi sunt, cum primum audiere; unde ista tam rapacia virtutis ingenia vel ex se fertilia. Illis autem hebetibus et optusis aut mala consuetudine obsessis diu robigo animorum effricanda est.

For the rest, as it leads those inclined to good the quicker to the heights, so it will help the weaker too and draw them out of evil opinions — whoever has handed them the tenets of philosophy. How necessary these are, you may see thus. Certain things sit within us that make us sluggish toward some things, rash toward others. Neither can this rashness be checked nor that sloth roused, unless their causes are removed — false admiration and false fear. As long as these possess us, you may say: “This you owe to your father, this to your children, this to your friends, this to your guests”; avarice will hold him back as he tries. He will know that he must fight for his country, but fear will dissuade him; he will know that he must sweat for his friends to the last drop, but indulgences will forbid it; he will know that a mistress is the gravest kind of injury to a wife, but lust will drive him to the contrary.

Ceterum, ut illos in bonum pronos citius educit ad summa, et hos inbecilliores adiuvabit malisque opinionibus extrahet, qui illis philosophiae placita tradiderit; quae quam sint necessaria, sic licet videas. Quaedam insident nobis, quae nos ad aha pigros, ad alia temerarios faciunt. Nec haec audacia reprimi potest nec illa inertia suscitari, nisi causae eorum eximuntur, falsa admiratio et falsa formido. Haec nos quamdiu possident, dicas licet: Hoc patri praestare debes, hoc liberis, hoc amicis, hoc hospitibus; temptantem avaritia retinebit. Sciet pro patria pugnandum esse, dissuadebit timor; sciet pro amicis desudandum esse ad extremum usque sudorem, sed deliciae vetabunt; sciet in uxore gravissimum esse genus iniuriae paelicem, sed illum libido in contraria inpinget.

It will be no use, then, to give precepts, unless you first remove what will stand against the precepts — no more than it will help to have set arms in sight and brought them near, unless the hands are freed to use them. That the mind may go to the precepts we give, it must be set loose.

Nihil ergo proderit dare praecepta, nisi prius amoveris obstatura praeceptis, non magis quam proderit arma in conspectu posuisse propiusque admovisse, nisi usurae manus expediuntur. Ut ad praecepta, quae damus, possit animus ire, solvendus est.

Suppose someone does what he ought; he will not do it constantly, will not do it evenly: for he will not know why he does it. Some things will come out right by chance or by practice, but he will not have in hand the rule by which they are to be measured, by which he may trust that what he has done is right. He will not promise to be such forever, who is good by chance.

Putemus aliquem facere, quod oportet; non faciet adsidue, non faciet aequaliter: nesciet enim, quare faciat. Aliqua vel casu vel exercitatione exibunt recta, sed non erit in manu regula, ad quam exigantur, cui credat recta esse, quae fecit. Non promittet se talem in perpetuum, qui bonus casu est.

Then precepts will perhaps secure that you do what you ought, but not that you do it as you ought; and if they do not secure that, they do not lead to virtue. He will do what he ought when admonished — I grant it; but that is too little, since indeed the praise is not in the deed, but in how it is done.

Deinde praestabunt tibi fortasse praecepta ut quod oportet faciat, non praestabunt ut quemadmodum oportet; si hoc non praestant, ad virtutem non perducunt. Faciet quod oportet monitus, concedo; sed id parum est, quoniam quidem non in facto laus est, sed in eo, quemadmodum fiat.

What is more shameful than a costly dinner, one that eats up a knight’s fortune? What so worthy of the censor’s mark, if a man, as those gluttons say, lavishes it “on himself and his genius”? And yet dinners of inauguration have cost the most frugal men a million sesterces. The same outlay, if given to the gullet, is base; if to an honor, it escapes reproach. For it is not luxury, but a ceremonial expense.

Quid est cena sumptuosa flagitiosius et equestrem censum consumente? Quid tam dignum censoria nota, si quis, ut isti ganeones loquuntur, sibi hoc et genio suo praestet? Et deciens tamen sestertio aditiales cenae frugalissimis viris constiterunt. Eadem res, si gulae datur, turpis est; si honori, reprensionem effugit. Non enim luxuria, sed inpensa sollemnis est.

A mullet of vast size — but why do I not add the weight, and provoke some men’s gullet? Four pounds and a half, they said it weighed — Tiberius Caesar, when one was sent him, ordered it carried to the market and sold: “Friends,” he said, “everything deceives me unless either Apicius buys that mullet, or Publius Octavius.” Beyond his hope the guess held good: they bid, Octavius won, and got himself great glory among his fellows, having bought for five thousand sesterces a fish that Caesar had sold and that not even Apicius had bought. It was shameful for Octavius to count out so much — not for the man who had bought it to send to Tiberius; though him too I would blame. He admired a thing he thought Caesar worthy of.

Mullum ingentis formae—quare autem non pondus adicio et aliquorum gulam inrito? quattuor pondo et selibram fuisse aiebant—Tiberius Caesar missum sibi cum in macellum deferri et veniri iussisset: amici, inquit, omnia me fallunt, nisi istum mullum aut Apicius emerit aut P. Octavius. Ultra spem illi coniectura processit: liciti sunt, vicit Octavius et ingentem consecutus est inter suos gloriam, cum quinque sestertiis emisset piscem, quem Caesar vendiderat, ne Apicius quidem emerat. Numerare tantum Octavio fuit turpe, non illi, qui emerat, ut Tiberio mitteret, quamquam illum quoque reprenderim; admiratus est rem, qua putavit Caesarem dignum.

Someone sits by a sick friend: we approve. But he does this for the sake of an inheritance: he is a vulture, he waits for the carcass. The same things are either base or honorable; it matters why or how they are done. But all will be done honorably, if we have given ourselves to the honorable and judged this the one good in human affairs, and whatever comes from it; the rest are goods for a day.

Amico aliquis aegro adsidet: probamus. At hoc hereditatis causa facit: vultur est, cadaver expectat. Eadem aut turpia sunt aut honesta; refert, quare aut quemadmodum fiant. Omnia autem honesta fient, si honesto nos addixerimus idque unum in rebus humanis bonum iudicaverimus quaeque ex eo sunt; cetera in diem bona sunt.

A persuasion, then, must be fixed in, one reaching the whole of life: this is what I call a doctrine. As this persuasion has been, so will be the things done, the things thought; and as these have been, such will the life be. To one who would order the whole, it is too little to have advised on the parts.

Ergo infigi debet persuasio ad totam pertinens vitam: hoc est, quod decretum voco. Qualis haec persuasio fuerit, talia erunt, quae agentur, quae cogitabuntur. Qualia autem haec fuerint, talis vita erit. In particulas suasisse totum ordinanti parum est.

Marcus Brutus, in the book he entitled “On Duty,” gives many precepts to parents and children and brothers; no one will do these as he ought, unless he has something to refer them to. We must set before us the end of the highest good, toward which we may strive, to which our every act and word may look — as those sailing must steer their course by some star.

M. Brutus in eo libro, quem περὶ καθήκοντος inscripsit, dat multa praecepta et parentibus et liberis et fratribus; haec nemo faciet quemadmodum debet, nisi habuerit quo referat. Proponamus oportet finem summi boni, ad quem nitamur, ad quem omne factum nostrum dictumque respiciat; veluti navigantibus ad aliquod sidus derigendus est cursus.

A life without a purpose is a wandering thing; but if a purpose must indeed be set, then doctrines begin to be necessary. This, I suppose, you will grant: that nothing is baser than a man doubtful, uncertain, drawing back his foot in timidity. This will happen to us in all things, unless those things are removed which reproach the mind and hold it back and forbid it to risk and to try with its whole self.

Vita sine proposito vaga est: quod si utique proponendum est, incipiunt necessaria esse decreta. Illud, ut puto, concedes, nihil esse turpius dubio et incerto ac timide pedem referente. Hoc in omnibus rebus accidet nobis, nisi eximuntur, quae reprendunt animos et detinent et periclitari conarique totos vetant.

How the gods are to be worshipped is usually prescribed. Let us forbid anyone to light lamps on the Sabbath, since the gods need no light and men themselves take no pleasure in soot; let us forbid the morning salutations and the sitting at the doors of temples — human ambition is caught by such offices; he worships god who knows him. Let us forbid to carry linen and scrapers to Jupiter and to hold a mirror for Juno; god does not seek attendants. Why not? He himself attends the human race; he is everywhere and at hand to all.

Quomodo sint di colendi, solet praecipi. Accendere aliquem lucernas sabbatis prohibeamus, quoniam nec lumine di egent et ne homines quidem delectatur fuligine, vetemus salutationibus matutinis fungi et foribus adsidere templorum; humana ambitio istis officiis capitur, deum colit qui novit, vetemus lintea et strigiles Iovi ferre et speculum tenere Iunoni; non quaerit ministros deus. Quidni? Ipse humano generi ministrat, ubique et omnibus praesto est.

Let a man hear what measure he ought to keep in sacrifices, how far to recoil from troublesome superstitions; he will never have made progress enough, unless he has conceived god in his mind as he ought — having all things, granting all things, beneficent without charge. What is the cause of the gods’ doing good? Their nature.

Audiat licet, quem modum servare in sacrificiis debeat, quam procul resilire a molestis superstitionibus, numquam satis profectum erit, nisi qualem debet deum mente conceperit, omnia habentem, omnia tribuentem, beneficum gratis. Quae causa est dis bene faciendi?

He errs who thinks them unwilling to harm: they cannot. They can neither receive injury nor do it; for to hurt and to be hurt are joined together. That highest and most beautiful nature of all has not even made dangerous those whom it exempted from danger.

Natura. Errat, si quis illos putat nocere nolle; non possunt. Nec accipere iniuriam queunt nec facere; laedere etenim laedique coniunctum est. Summa illa ac pulcherrima omnium natura quos periculo exemit, ne periculosos quidem fecit.

The first worship of the gods is to believe in the gods; then to render them their majesty, to render them goodness, without which there is no majesty — to know that it is they who preside over the world, who temper all things by their power, who bear the guardianship of the human race, sometimes careless of single men. These neither give evil nor have it; but they do chastise some and restrain them, impose penalties, and sometimes punish under the appearance of good. Would you win the gods’ favor? Be good. He has worshipped them enough who has imitated them.

Primus est deorum cultus deos credere; deinde reddere illis maiestatem suam, reddere bonitatem, sine qua nulla maiestas est. Scire illos esse, qui praesident mundo, qui universa vi sua temperant, qui humani generis tutelam gerunt interdum incuriosi singulorum. Hi nec dant malum nec habent; ceterum castigant quosdam et coercent et inrogant poenas et aliquando specie boni puniunt. vis deos propitiare? Bonus esto. Satis illos coluit, quisquis imitatus est.

Here is the other question: how men are to be treated. What are we doing? What precepts do we give? That we be sparing of human blood? How little it is, not to harm one whom you ought to help! Great praise, surely, if man is gentle to man! Shall we prescribe that he stretch out a hand to the shipwrecked, point the way to the wanderer, share his bread with the hungry? When shall I say all that is to be done and avoided, since I can hand him this formula of human duty in brief: all this that you see, in which the divine and human are enclosed, is one; we are members of a great body.

Ecce altera quaestio, quomodo hominibus sit utendum. Quid agimus? Quae damus praecepta? Ut pareamus sanguini humano? Quantulum est ei non nocere, cui debeas prodesse! Magna scilicet laus est, si homo mansuetus homini est. Praecipiemus, ut naufrago manum porrigat, erranti viam monstret, cum esuriente panem suum dividat? Quando omnia, quae praestanda ac vitanda sunt, dicam, cum possim breviter hanc illi formulam humani officii tradere: omne hoc, quod vides, quo divina atque humana conclusa sunt, unum est; membra sumus corporis magni.

Nature begot us kin, since she brought us forth from the same stuff and to the same ends. She it is that put into us mutual love and made us sociable; she framed the fair and the just; by her ordinance it is more wretched to harm than to be harmed; by her command let hands be ready to help.

Natura nos cognatos edidit, cum ex isdem et in eadem gigneret. Haec nobis amorem indidit mutuum et sociabiles fecit. Illa aequum iustumque composuit; ex illius constitutione miserius est nocere quam laedi. Ex illius imperio paratae sint iuvandis manus.

I am a man; I count nothing human foreign to me.

Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto.

After gods and men, let us consider how things are to be used. We have flung out precepts in vain, unless this has gone before: what opinion we ought to hold about each thing — about poverty, about riches, about glory, about disgrace, about country, about exile. Let us appraise them one by one, rumor set aside, and ask what they are, not what they are called.

Post deos hominesque dispiciamus, quomodo rebus sit utendum. In supervacuum praecepta iactavimus, nisi illud praecesserit, qualem de quacumque re habere debeamus opinionem, de paupertate de divitiis, de gloria de ignominia, de patria de exilio. Aestimemus singula fama remota et quaeramus, quid sint, non quid vocentur.

Let us pass to the virtues. Someone will prescribe that we value prudence highly, that we embrace fortitude, that we join justice to ourselves, if it can be done, even closer than the rest. But it will accomplish nothing, if we are ignorant what virtue is, whether it is one or many, whether separate or interwoven, whether he who has one has the rest, and how they differ from one another.

Ad virtutes transeamus. Praecipiet aliquis, ut prudentiam magni aestimemus, ut fortitudinem complectamur, iustitiam, si fieri potest, propius etiam quam ceteras nobis adplicemus. Sed nil aget, si ignoramus, quid sit virtus, una sit an plures, separatae aut innexae, an qui unam habet et ceteras habeat, quo inter se differant.

The carpenter need not inquire about carpentry — what its origin, what its use — no more than the pantomime about the art of dancing; all those arts, if they know themselves, lack nothing, for they do not pertain to the whole of life. But virtue is the knowledge both of other things and of itself; one must learn about it, in order to learn it.

Non est necesse fabro de fabrica quaerere, quod eius initium, quis usus sit, non magis quam pantomimo de arte saltandi; omnes istae artes si se sciunt, nihil deest; non enim ad totam pertinent vitam, virtus et aliorum scientia est et sui; discendum de ipsa est, ut ipsa discatur.

Action will not be right, unless the will has been right; for from the will is action. And the will, again, will not be right, unless the disposition of the mind has been right; for from this is the will. And the disposition of the mind will not be at its best, unless it has grasped the laws of the whole of life, and worked out what is to be judged about each thing, and reduced things to the truth. Tranquillity falls to none but those who have attained an unchangeable and certain judgment; the rest fall away again and again and are set up once more, and waver by turns between letting go and reaching after.

Actio recta non erit, nisi recta fuerit voluntas, ab hac enim est actio. Rursus voluntas non erit recta, nisi habitus animi rectus fuerit, ab hoc enim est voluntas. Habitus porro animi non erit in optimo, nisi totius vitae leges perceperit et quid de quoque iudicandum sit, cxegerit exegerit, nisi res ad verum redegerit. Non contingit tranquillitas nisi inmutabile certumque iudicium adeptis; ceteri decidunt subinde et reponuntur et inter missa adpetitaque alternis fluctuantur.

What is the cause of this tossing of theirs? That nothing is clear to those who use the most uncertain guide — rumor. If you would always want the same things, you must want true things. To the truth one does not come without doctrines; they hold life together. Good and evil, honorable and base, just and unjust, pious and impious, the virtues and the uses of the virtues, the possession of convenient things, esteem and dignity, health, strength, beauty, keenness of the senses — all these need an appraiser. Let it be permitted to know at how much each is to be entered in the reckoning.

Causa his quae iactationis est? Quod nihil liquet incertissimo regimine utentibus, fama. Si vis eadem semper velle, vera oportet velis. Ad verum sine decretis non pervenitur; continent vitam. Bona et mala, honesta et turpia, iusta et iniusta, pia et impia, virtutes ususque virtutum, rerum commodarum possessio, existimatio ac dignitas, valitudo, vires, forma, sagacitas sensuum; haec omnia aestimatorem desiderant. Scire liceat, quanti quidque in censum deferendum sit.

For you are deceived, and think some things worth more than they are; and so deceived that the things held greatest among us — riches, favor, power — are to be valued at a single sesterce. You will not know this, unless you have inspected the very standard by which these are appraised against one another. As leaves cannot grow green of themselves, but need a branch to cling to, from which to draw their sap, so these precepts, if they stand alone, wither; they want to be set into a school.

Falleris enim et pluris quaedam quam sunt putas, adeoque falleris, ut, quae maximi inter nos habentur, divitiae, gratia, potentia, sestertio nummo aestimanda sint. Hoc nescies, nisi constitutionem ipsam, qua ista inter se aestimantur, inspexeris. Quemadmodum folia per se virere non possunt, ramum desiderant, cui inhaereant, ex quo trahant sucum; sic ista praecepta, si sola sunt, marcent; infigi volunt sectae.

Besides, those who do away with doctrines do not understand that they are confirmed by the very act of doing them away. For what do they say? That life is sufficiently set out by precepts, that the doctrines of wisdom — that is, the dogmas — are superfluous. And yet this very thing they say is a doctrine, just as much, by Hercules, as if I now said that one should withdraw from precepts as superfluous and use doctrines, and bend one’s study to these alone; by this very thing, in denying that precepts are to be heeded, I would be giving a precept.

Praeterea non intellegunt hi, qui decreta tollunt, eo ipso confirmari illa, quo tolluntur. Quid enim dicunt? Praeceptis vitam satis explicari, supervacua esse decreta sapientiae, id est dogmata. Atqui hoc ipsum, quod dicunt, decretum est tam me hercules quam si nunc ego dicerem recedendum a praeceptis velut supervacuis, utendum esse decretis, in haec sola studium conferendum; hoc ipso, quo negarem curanda esse praecepta, praeciperem.

Some things in philosophy need admonition, some need proof — and much proof, because they are wrapped up and scarcely opened with the utmost care and subtlety. If proofs are necessary, so are doctrines, which gather the truth by arguments. Some things are plain, some obscure: plain are those grasped by the senses, by memory; obscure those that lie beyond these. But reason is not filled with the manifest; its greater and fairer part is in things hidden. Hidden things demand proof; proof is not without doctrines; therefore doctrines are necessary.

Quaedam admonitionem in philosophia desiderant, quaedam probationem et quidem multam, quia involuta sunt vixque summa diligentia ac summa subtilitate aperiuntur. Si probationes necessariae sunt, et decreta, quae veritatem argumentis colligunt. Quaedam aperta sunt, quaedam obscura: aperta, quae sensu conprehenduntur, quae memoria; obscura, quae extra haec sunt. Ratio autem non impletur manifestis; maior eius pars pulchriorque in occultis est. Occulta probationem exigunt, probatio non sine decretis est; necessaria ergo decreta sunt.

What makes common sense makes also perfect sense — a sure persuasion of things; without which, if all things float in the mind, doctrines are necessary, which give the mind an inflexible judgment.

Quae res communem sensum facit, eadem perfectum, certa rerum persuasio; sine qua si omnia in animo natant, necessaria sunt decreta, quae dant animis inflexibile iudicium.

Finally, when we admonish someone to hold a friend in the same place as himself, to reckon that an enemy may become a friend, to kindle love in the one and to moderate hatred in the other, we add: “It is just and honorable.” But the just and honorable is contained in the reasoning of our doctrines; therefore this reasoning is necessary, without which those things too do not stand.

Denique cum monemus aliquem, ut amicum eodem habeat loco, quo se, ut ex inimico cogitet fieri posse amicum, in illo amorem incitet, in hoc odium moderetur, adicimus: iustum est et honestum. Iustum autem honestumque decretorum nostrorum continet ratio; ergo haec necessaria est, sine qua nec illa sunt.

But let us join both. For without a root the branches are useless, and the roots themselves are helped by the things they have begotten. How much use the hands have, no one may be ignorant; they help openly. But that heart by which the hands live, from which they take their impulse, by which they are moved, lies hidden. The same I can say of precepts: they are open, but the doctrines of wisdom are in the secret place. As only the initiated know the holier rites, so in philosophy those hidden things are shown to the admitted and received into the sacred; but precepts and other things of the kind are known to the profane too.

Sed utrumque iungamus. Namque et sine radice inutiles rami sunt et ipsae radices iis, quae genuere, adiuvantur. Quantum utilitatis manus habeant, nescire nulli licet, aperte iuvant; cor illud, quo manus vivunt, ex quo impetum sumunt, quo moventur, latet. Idem dicere de praeceptis possum: aperta sunt, decreta vero sapientiae in abdito. Sicut sanctiora sacrorum tantum initiati sciunt, ita in philosophia arcana illa admissis receptisque in sacra ostenduntur; at praecepta et alia eiusmodi profanis quoque nota sunt.

Posidonius judges necessary not only preceptive instruction — for nothing forbids us to use this word — but also persuasion and consolation and exhortation. To these he adds the inquiry into causes, aetiology — which I see no reason we should not dare to call so, since the grammarians, guardians of the Latin tongue, so name it by their own right. He says a description of each virtue too will be useful; this Posidonius calls ethology, others call it characterism, rendering the signs and marks of each virtue and vice by which like things are distinguished from one another.

Posidonius non tantum praeceptionem, nihil enim nos hoc verbo uti prohibet, sed etiam suasionem et consolationem et exhortationem necessariam iudicat. His adicit causarum inquisitionem, aetiologian quam quare nos dicere non audeamus, cum grammatici, custodes Latini sermonis, suo iure ita appellent, non video. Ait utilem futuram et descriptionem cuiusque virtutis; hanc Posidonius ethologian vocat, quidam characterismon appellant, signa cuiusque virtutis ac vitii et notas reddentem, quibus inter se similia discriminentur.

This has the same force as prescribing. For he who prescribes says: “You will do these things, if you wish to be temperate.” He who describes says: “The temperate man is he who does these things, who abstains from those.” You ask what the difference is? The one gives the precepts of virtue, the other a model. These descriptions — and, to use the tax-farmers’ word, these “sketches” — I confess to be of use: let us set forth things to be praised, and an imitator will be found.

Haec res eandem vim habet quam praecipere. Nam qui praecipit, dicit: illa facies, si voles temperans esse. Qui describit, ait: temperans est, qui illa facit, qui illis abstinet. Quaeris, quid intersit? Alter praecepta virtutis dat, alter exemplar. Descriptiones has et, ut publicanorum utar verbo, iconismos ex usu esse confiteor; proponamus laudanda, invenietur imitator.

Do you think it useful to be given the marks by which you may recognize a noble horse, lest you be cheated in the buying, lest you waste your pains on a lazy one? How much more useful is this — to know the marks of an excellent mind, which one is permitted to transfer from another into oneself?

Putas utile dari tibi argumenta, per quae intellegas nobilem equum, ne fallaris empturus, ne operam perdas in ignavo? Quanto hoc utilius est, excellentis animi notas nosse, quas ex alio in se transferre permittitur.

At once the foal of noble stock steps higher in the fields and sets down his supple legs; the first to take the road, to try the threatening rivers and trust himself to an unknown bridge, nor does he dread vain noises. Lofty is his neck, clean-cut his head, short his belly and full his back, and his spirited breast riots with muscle. Then, if arms have given a sound far off, he cannot stand in place; his ears prick, his limbs tremble, and snorting he rolls the gathered fire beneath his nostrils.

Continuo pecoris generosi pullus in arvis Altius ingreditur et mollia crura reponit; Primus et ire viam et fluvios temptare minantis Audet et ignoto sese committere ponti, Nec vanos horret strepitus. Illi ardua cervix Argutumque caput, brevis alvus obesaque terga, Luxuriatque toris animosum pectus. Tum, si qua sonum procul arma dederunt, Stare loco nescit, micat auribus et tremit artus Conlectumque premens volvit sub naribus ignem.

While doing something else, our Virgil described the brave man; I at least would give no other image to a great man. If I had to portray Marcus Cato, fearless amid the crashes of the civil wars, the first to assail the armies already brought up to the Alps, and bearing himself in the very path of civil war, I would assign him no other countenance, no other bearing.

Dum aliud agit, vergilius noster descripsit virum fortem; ego certe non aliam imaginem magno viro dederim. Si mihi M. Cato exprimendus sit, inter fragores bellorum civilium inpavidus et primus incessens admotos iam exercitus Alpibus civilique se bello ferens obvium, non alium illi adsignaverim vultum, non alium habitum.

Certainly no one could “step higher” than he who raised himself at once against Caesar and Pompey, and, while some favored Caesar’s power and others Pompey’s, challenged both and showed that the commonwealth too had a party. For it is too little to say of Cato: “nor does he dread vain noises.” Why not? — when he does not dread the real and neighboring ones; when, against ten legions and Gallic auxiliaries and barbarian arms mixed with civil, he sends out a free voice and urges the commonwealth not to fall short for liberty’s sake, but to try all things — more honorable to fall into servitude than to walk into it.

Altius certe nemo ingredi potuit quam qui simul contra Caesarem Pompeiumque se sustulit et aliis Caesareanas opes, aliis Pompeianas foventibus utrumque provocavit ostenditque aliquas esse et rei publicae partes. Nam parum est in Catone dicere: nec vanos horret strepitus. Quidni? Cum veros vicinosque non horreat, cum contra decem legiones et Gallica auxilia et mixta barbarica arma civilibus vocem liberam mittat et rem publicam hortetur, ne pro libertate decidat, sed omnia experiatur, honestius in servitutem casura quam itura.

How much vigor and spirit in him, how much confidence amid the public terror! He knows that he is the one man whose standing is not in question; for the question is not whether Cato is free, but whether he is among the free — hence his contempt of dangers and of swords. It is a delight, admiring the man’s unconquered constancy as he does not totter amid the public ruins, to say: “and his spirited breast riots with muscle.”

Quantum in illo vigoris ac spiritus, quantum in publica trepidatione fiducia est! Scit se unum esse, de cuius statu non agatur; non enim quaeri, an liber Cato, sed an inter liberos sit; inde periculorum gladiorumque contemptus. Libet admirantem invictam constantiam viri inter publicas ruinas non labantis dicere: luxuriatque toris animosum pectus.

It will profit not only to say what good men are wont to be, and to draw their form and lineaments, but to relate and set forth what they have been: Cato’s last and bravest wound, through which liberty breathed out its soul; the wisdom of Laelius and his concord with his friend Scipio; the noble deeds at home and abroad of the elder Cato; Tubero’s wooden couches, when he spread them for the public feast, and the goatskins for coverlets, and the earthen vessels set out for the banquet before the very shrine of Jupiter. What else is this but to consecrate poverty on the Capitol? Though I had no other deed of his by which to set him among the Catos, is this too little? That was a censorship, not a dinner.

Proderit non tantum quales esse soleant boni viri dicere formamque eorum et lineamenta deducere, sed quales fuerint narrare et exponere, Catonis illud ultimum ac fortissimum vulnus, per quod libertas emisit animam, Laeli sapientiam et cum suo Scipione concordiam, alterius Catonis domi forisque egregia facta, Tuberonis ligneos lectos, cum in publicum sternerent, hacdinasque haedinasque pro stragulis pelles et ante ipsius Iovis cellam adposita conviviis vasa fictilia Quid aliud paupertatem in Capitolio consecrare? Ut nullum aliud factum eius habeam, quo illum Catonibus inseram, hoc parum credimus? Censura fuit illa, non cena.

O how men greedy of glory are ignorant of what it is, or how it is to be sought! On that day the Roman people gazed at the furniture of many men; it admired that of one. The gold and silver of all those others has been broken up and melted down a thousand times; but through all the ages Tubero’s earthenware will endure. Farewell.

O quam ignorant homines cupidi gloriae, quid illa sit aut quemadmodum petenda! Illo die populus Romanus multorum supellectilem spectavit, unius miratus est. Omnium illorum aurum argentumque fractum est et milliens conflatum, at omnibus saeculis Tuberonis fictilia durabunt. Vale.

And yet you are indignant at something, or complaining — and do not understand that there is nothing evil in those things except this one: that you are indignant and complaining? If you ask me, I think nothing wretched to a man unless there is something in the nature of things which he thinks wretched. I shall not endure myself on the day when I can endure nothing. I am in poor health: it is part of fate. My household has taken to its bed, my money is lost, my house has cracked; losses, wounds, toils, fears have rushed upon me. It happens. That is too little to say: it had to happen.

Tamen tu indignans aliquid aut querens et non intellegis nihil esse in istis mali nisi hoc unum, quod indignans et querens? Si me interrogas, nihil puto viro miserum nisi aliquid esse in rerum natura, quod putet miserum. Non feram me, quo die aliquid ferre non potero. Male valeo; pars fati est. Familia decubuit, faenus offendit, domus crepuit, damna, vulnera, labores, metus incucurrerunt; solet fieri. Hoc parum est; debuit fieri.

These things are decreed, they do not befall by chance. If you believe me at all, I lay bare to you my inmost feelings even now: in all that seems adverse and hard I am so framed that I do not obey god, but assent to him. I follow him from the heart, not because I must. Nothing will ever befall me that I shall receive with sadness, with an ill face. I shall pay no tribute unwillingly. But all the things at which we groan, which we dread, are the tributes of life; of these, my Lucilius, neither hope for exemption nor seek it.

Decernuntur ista, non accidunt. Si quid credis mihi, intimos adfectus meos tibi cum maxime detego; in omnibus, quae adversa videntur et dura, sic formatus sum: non pareo deo, sed adsentior. Ex animo illum, non quia necesse est, sequor. Nihil umquam mihi incidet, quod tristis excipiam, quod malo vultu. Nullum tributum invitus conferam. Omnia autem, ad quae gemimus, quae expavescimus, tributa vitae sunt; horum, mi Lucili, nec speraveris immunitatem nec petieris.

Pain of the bladder has disquieted you, letters have come too little sweet, there are continual losses; I will come nearer — you have feared for your life. Why, did you not know that you were wishing for these things when you wished for old age? All these are in a long life, as in a long road there is dust and mud and rain.

Vesicae te dolor inquietavit, epistulae venerunt parum dulces, detrimenta continua, propius accedam, de capite timuisti. Quid, tu nesciebas haec te optare, cum optares senectutem? Omnia ista in longa vita sunt, quomodo in longa via et pulvis et lutum et pluvia.

“But I wished to live, and yet to be free of all discomforts.” So effeminate a voice disgraces a man. See in what spirit you receive this wish of mine; I make it with great spirit, not merely with good will: may neither gods nor goddesses bring it to pass that fortune keep you among her darlings.

Sed volebam vivere, carere tamen incommodis omnibus. Tam effeminata vox virum dedecet. Videris, quemadmodum hoc votum meum excipias; ego illud magno animo, non tantum bono facio: neque di neque deae faciant, ut te fortuna in deliciis habeat.

Ask yourself: if some god gave you the power to choose, whether you would rather live in the meat-market or in the camp. And yet to live, Lucilius, is to be a soldier. So those who are tossed about, and go up and down through toils and steeps, and undergo the most dangerous expeditions, are brave men and the foremost of the camp; but those whom a rotten ease holds softly while others labor are little turtle-doves, safe by reason of their disgrace. Farewell.

Ipse te interroga, si quis potestatem tibi deus faciat, utrum velis vivere in macello an in castris. Atqui vivere, Lucili, militare est. Itaque hi, qui iactantur et per operosa atque ardua sursum ac deorsum eunt et expeditiones periculosissimas obeunt, fortes viri sunt primoresque castrorum; isti, quos putida quies aliis laborantibus molliter habet, turturillae sunt, tuti contumeliae causa. Vale.

You are mistaken, my Lucilius, if you think that luxury and the neglect of good morals, and the other things each man charges against his own times, are a vice of our age; they belong to men, not to the times. No age has been free from fault. And if you begin to weigh the license of any age, it shames me to say it — never was sin committed more openly than in Cato’s very presence.

Erras, mi Lucili, si existimas nostri saeculi esse vitium luxuriam et neglegentiam boni moris et alia, quae obiecit suis quisque temporibus; hominum sunt ista, non temporum. Nulla aetas vacavit a culpa. Et si aestimare licentiam cuiusque saeculi incipias, pudet dicere, numquam apertius quam coram Catone peccatum est.

Could anyone believe that money changed hands in that trial in which Publius Clodius was the defendant for the adultery he had committed with Caesar’s wife in the secret rite, violating the sanctity of that sacrifice which is said to be performed “for the people” — with all males removed so far beyond the enclosure that even the pictures of male animals are covered? And yet coins were given to the jurors, and — what is baser than even this bargain — the embraces of matrons and of noble youths were exacted besides, by way of a bonus.

Credat aliquis pecuniam esse versatam in eo iudicio, in quo reus erat P. Clodius ob id adulterium, quod cum Caesaris uxore in operto commiserat violatis religionibus eius sacrificii, quod pro populo fieri dicitur sic summotis extra consaeptum omnibus viris, ut picturae quoque masculorum animalium contegantur? Atqui dati iudicibus nummi sunt et, quod hac etiamnunc pactione turpius est, stupra insuper matronarum et adulescentulorum nobilium stilari loco exacta sunt.

The sin lay less in the charge than in the acquittal: the defendant on a charge of adultery parceled out adulteries, and was not secure of his safety until he had made his jurors like himself. These things were done in that trial in which, if nothing else, Cato had given his testimony. I will set down Cicero’s own words, since the matter exceeds belief:

Minus crimine quam absolutionc peccatum est: adulterii reus adulteria divisit nec ante fuit de salute securus, quam similes sui iudices suos reddidit. Haec in eo iudicio facta sunt, in quo, si nihil aliud, Cato testimonium dixerat. Ipsa ponam verba Ciceronis, quia res fidem excedit:

“He summoned them to him, made promises, interceded, gave. And now indeed — good gods, what a ruin! — even nights with certain women, and the introductions of noble youths, were to some jurors as a bonus on top of their fee.”

Accersivit ad se, promisit, intercessit, dedit. Iam vero—o di boni, rem perditam!—etiam noctes certarum mulierum atque adulescentulorum nobilium introductiones nonnullis iudicibus pro mercedis cumulo fuerunt.

There is no time to complain of the price; there was more in the extras. “Do you want the wife of that upright fellow? I will give her. The wife of this rich man? I will furnish you a night with her. Unless you commit adultery, condemn. That beautiful woman you desire will come. I promise you her night, and do not put it off; within the adjournment the pledge of my promise will hold.” It is more to distribute adulteries than to commit them; and this indeed is to serve notice on the mothers of households.

Non vacat de pretio queri, plus in accessionibus fuit. Vis se veri illius uxorem? Dabo illam, vis divitis huius? Tibi praestabo concubitum. Adulterium nisi feceris, damna. Illa formonsa, quam desideras, veniet. Illius tibi noctem promitto nec differo; intra comperendinationem fides promissi mei stabit. Plus est distribuere adulteria quam facere; hoc vero matribus familiae denuntiare est.

These Clodian jurors had asked the senate for a guard, which was not needed except by men about to condemn — and they had got it. And so Catulus said neatly to them, when the defendant had been acquitted: “Why did you ask a guard of us? Was it lest your money be snatched from you?” Yet amid these jokes he went off unpunished — before the trial an adulterer, in the trial a pimp — who escaped condemnation more vilely than he had earned it.

Hi iudices Clodiani a senatu petierant praesidium, quod non erat nisi damnaturis necessarium, et inpetraverant. Itaque eleganter illis Catulus absoluto reo, quid vos, inquit, praesidium a nobis petebatis? An ne nummi vobis eriperentur? Inter hos tamen iocos inpune tulit ante iudicium adulter, in iudicio leno, qui damnationem peius effugit quam meruit.

Do you believe anything was more corrupt than those morals, in which lust could be checked neither by religion nor by the courts, in which, in that very inquiry conducted by special decree of the senate, more was committed than was being inquired into? The question was whether anyone could be safe after adultery; it turned out that one could not be safe without adultery.

Quicquam fuisse corruptius illis moribus credis, quibus libido non sacris inhiberi, non iudiciis poterat, quibus in ea ipsa quaestione, quae extra ordinem senatusconsulto exercebatur, plus quam quaerebatur, admissum est? Quaerebatur, an post adulterium aliquis posset tutus esse; apparuit sine adulterio tutum esse non posse.

This was done between Pompey and Caesar, between Cicero and Cato — Cato, I say, in whose presence the people are said not to have allowed themselves to demand the Floralian sport of stripping the courtesans, if you believe that men then watched more strictly than they judged. These things both will be done and have been done; and the license of cities sometimes subsides through discipline and fear, never of its own accord.

Hoc inter Pompeium et Caesarem, inter Ciceronem Catonemque commissum est, Catonem inquam illum, quo sedente populus negatur permisisse sibi postulare Florales iocos nudandarum meretricum, si credis spectasse tunc severius homines quam iudicasse. Et fient et facta sunt ista, et licentia urbium aliquando disciplina metuque, numquam sponte considet.

There is no reason, then, why you should believe that we have allowed the most to lust and the least to the laws. For this youth of ours is far more frugal than that, when a defendant would deny his adultery before the jurors and the jurors confess it before the defendant, when debauchery was committed for the sake of the case to be judged, when Clodius, popular by the very vices that made him guilty, plied the trade of go-between in the very pleading of the case. Could anyone believe this? He who was being condemned for one adultery was acquitted by many.

Non est itaque quod credas nos plurimum libidini permisisse, legibus minimum. Longe enim frugalior haec iuventus est quam illa, cum reus adulterium apud iudices negaret, iudices apud reum confiterentur, cum stuprum committeretur rei iudicandae causa, cum Clodius isdem vitiis gratiosus, quibus nocens, conciliaturas exerceret in ipsa causae dictione. Credat hoc quisquam? Qui damnabatur uni adulterio, absolutus est multis.

Every age will bear Clodiuses, not every age Catos. We are prone to the worse, because neither leader nor companion can be lacking, and the thing goes forward even without leader, without companion. The road to the vices is not merely downhill but headlong; and — what makes most men incorrigible — the faults of all other arts are a shame to their craftsmen and offend the man who goes wrong, but the faults of living delight.

Omne tempus Clodios, non omne Catones feret. Ad deteriora faciles sumus, quia nec dux potest nec comes deesse, et res ipsa etiam sine duce, sine comite procedit. Non pronum est tantum ad vitia, sed praeceps, et quod plerosque inemendabiles facit, omnium aliarum artium peccata artificibus pudori sunt offenduntque deerrantem, vitae peccata delectant.

The pilot does not rejoice in a capsized ship, the physician does not rejoice in a patient carried out to burial, the orator does not rejoice if by the advocate’s fault the defendant has fallen; but, on the contrary, to all men their own crime is a pleasure. That man rejoices in an adultery to which the very difficulty incited him. That man rejoices in a fraud and a theft, and his fault did not displease him before the luck of the fault did. This comes about through depraved habit.

Non gaudet navigio gubernator everso, non gaudet aegro medicus elato, non gaudet orator, si patroni culpa reus cedidit; at contra omnibus crimen suum voluptati est. Laetatur ille adulterio, in quod inritatus est ipsa difficultate. Laetatur ille circumscriptione furtoque, nec ante illi culpa quam culpae fortuna displicuit. Id prava consuetudine evenit.

Otherwise — that you may know there underlies even minds dragged into the worst a sense of the good, and that the base is not unknown but neglected — all men hide their sins and, however successfully these have turned out, use their fruit while withdrawing the deeds from sight. But a good conscience wishes to come forth and be seen; wickedness fears the very darkness.

Alioquin ut scias subesse animis etiam in pessima abductis boni sensum nec ignorari turpe, sed neglegi; omnes peccata dissimulant et, quamvis feliciter cesserint, fructu illorum utuntur, ipsa subducunt. At bona conscientia prodire vult et conspici; ipsas nequitia tenebras timet.

Elegantly, then, I think it was said by Epicurus: “It can happen to the guilty man to lie hidden; the assurance of hiding he cannot have” — or, if you judge the sense can be better unfolded thus: “It does sinners no good to lie hidden, because, even if they have the luck of hiding, they have not the confidence of it.” So it is: crimes can be safe, they cannot be secure.

Eleganter itaque ab Epicuro dictum puto: potest nocenti contingere, ut lateat, latendi fides non potest, aut si hoc modo melius hunc explicari posse iudicas sensum: ideo non prodest latere peccantibus, quia latendi etiam si felicitatem habent, fiduciam non habent. Ita est: tuta scelera esse possunt, secura esse non possunt.

I do not judge this repugnant to our school, if it is unfolded so. Why? Because the first and greatest penalty of sinners is to have sinned, and no crime — though fortune deck it with her gifts, though she protect and defend it — is unpunished, since the punishment of crime is in the crime. But none the less these second penalties press upon it and follow it too: to fear always, to be in dread, to distrust security. Why should I free wickedness from this punishment? Why should I not always leave it in suspense?

Hoc ego repugnare sectae nostrae, si sic expediatur, non iudico. Quare? Quia prima illa et maxima peccantium est poena peccasse, nec ullum scelus, licet illud fortuna exornet muneribus suis, licet tueatur ac vindicet, inpunitum est, quoniam sceleris in scelere supplicium est. Sed nihilominus et hae illam secundae poenae premunt ac secuntur, timere semper et expavescere et securitati diffidere. Quare ego hoc supplicio nequitiam liberem? Quare non semper illam in suspenso relinquam?

Let us dissent from Epicurus there, where he says that nothing is just by nature, and that crimes are to be avoided because the fear of them cannot be avoided; let us agree here — that evil deeds are scourged by conscience, and that it has the most of torments because a perpetual anxiety urges and lashes it, because it cannot trust the sureties of its own security. For this very thing is the proof, Epicurus, that we shrink from crime by nature: that fear is present to everyone even amid safety. Fortune frees many from punishment, none from fear.

Illic dissentiamus cum Epicuro, ubi dicit nihil iustum esse natura et crimina vitanda esse, quia vitari metus non posse; hic consentiamus mala facinora conscientia flagellari et plurimum illi tormentorum esse eo, quod perpetua illam sollicitudo urget ac verberat, quod sponsoribus securitatis suae non potest credere. Hoc enim ipsum argumentum est, Epicure, natura nos a scelere abhorrere, quod nulli non etiam inter tuta timor est. Multos fortuna liberat poena, metu neminem.

Why, except that an aversion to the thing nature has condemned is fixed in us? And so the assurance of hiding never comes even to those in hiding, because conscience convicts them and shows them to themselves. To be in dread is the property of the guilty. It would have gone ill with us — since many crimes escape the law and the avenger and the written penalties — if those natural and heavy ones did not exact payment for the present, and fear take the place of endurance. Farewell.

Quare nisi quia infixa nobis eius rei aversatio est, quam natura damnavit? Ideo numquam fides latendi fit etiam latentibus, quia coarguit illos conscientia et ipsos sibi ostendit. Proprium autem est nocentium trepidare. Male de nobis actum erat, quod multa scelera legem et vindicem effugiunt et scripta supplicia, nisi illa naturalia et gravia de praesentibus solverent et in locum patientiae timor cederet. Vale.

Never believe anyone happy who hangs upon his happiness. He leans on brittle things who is glad at what comes from without; the joy will go out that came in. But that which is born of itself is faithful and firm, and grows, and attends us to the very end; the rest, whose admiration is the crowd’s, are goods for a day. What then? Can they not be of use and of pleasure? Who denies it? But only so, if they hang on us, not we on them.

Numquam credideris felicem quemquam ex felicitate suspensum. Fragilibus innititur, qui adventicio laetus est; exibit gaudium, quod intravit. At illud ex se ortum fidele firmumque est et crescit et ad extremum usque prosequitur; cetera, quorum admiratio est vulgo, in diem bona sunt. Quid ergo? Non usui ac voluptati esse possunt? Quis negat? Sed ita, si illa ex nobis pendent, non ex illis nos.

All the things that fortune looks upon become fruitful and pleasant only if he who has them has himself too, and is not in the power of his own possessions. For they err, Lucilius, who think that fortune bestows on us anything good or evil; she gives the matter of goods and evils, and the beginnings of things that, with us, will issue in evil or good. For the mind is stronger than all fortune, and itself leads its affairs in either direction, and is to itself the cause of a happy or a wretched life.

Omnia, quae fortuna intuetur, ita fructifera ac iucunda fiunt, si qui habet illa, se quoque habet nec in rerum suarum potestate est. Errant enim, Lucili, qui aut boni aliquid nobis aut malum iudicant tribuere fortunam; materiam dat bonorum ac malorum et initia rerum apud nos in malum bonumve exiturarum. valentior enim omni fortuna animus est et in utramque partem ipse res suas ducit beataeque ac miserae vitae sibi causa est.

The bad man turns all to the bad, even what had come with the look of the best; the upright and whole man corrects the wrongs of fortune, and softens the hard and rough by the knowledge of bearing them, and likewise receives prosperity gratefully and modestly, adversity steadily and bravely. Though he be prudent, though he do all by exact judgment, though he attempt nothing beyond his strength, that good — whole and set beyond all threats — will not fall to him, unless he is sure against the unsure.

Malus omnia in malum vertit, etiam quae cum specie optimi venerant; rectus atque integer corrigit prava fortunae et dura atque aspera ferendi scientia mollit, idemque et secunda grate excipit modesteque et adversa constanter ac fortiter. Qui licet prudens sit, licet exacto faciat cuncta iudicio, licet nihil supra vires suas temptet, non continget illi bonum illud integrum et extra minas positum, nisi certus adversus incerta est.

Whether you choose to watch others — for judgment is freer among others’ affairs — or yourself, with favor set aside, you will both feel and confess this: that none of these desirable and dear things is of use, unless you have armed yourself against the fickleness of chance and of what follows chance, unless you have said, often and without complaint, amid each loss: “It seemed otherwise to the gods.”

Sive alios observare volueris—liberius enim inter aliena iudicium est, sive te ipsum favore seposito—et senties hoc et confiteberis, nihil ex his optabilibus et caris utile esse, nisi te contra levitatem casus rerumque casum sequentium instruxeris, nisi illud frequenter et sine querella inter singula damna dixeris: dis aliter visum est.

Nay, by Hercules, that I may reach for a braver and juster verse by which to prop your mind the more, say this, whenever something has fallen out otherwise than you thought: “The gods judged better.” To one so composed nothing will happen. And he will be so composed if he has thought, before he has felt it, what the variety of human affairs can do; if he has held children and wife and patrimony as one not bound to have them always, and as one who will not for that be the more wretched if he has ceased to have them. That mind is calamitous which is anxious for the future and wretched before its miseries, which is troubled that the things in which it delights should last to the very end.

Immo mehercules ut carmen fortius ac iustius petam, quo animum tuum magis fulcias, hoc dicito, quotiens aliquid aliter quam cogitabas evenerit: di melius. Sic composito nihil accidet. Sic autem conponetur, si, quid humanarum rerum varietas possit, cogitaverit, antequam senserit, si et liberos et coniugem et patrimonium sic habuerit tamquam non utique semper habiturus et tamquam non futurus ob hoc miserior, si habere desierit. Calamitosus est animus futuri anxius et ante miserias miser, qui sollicitus est, ut ea, quibus delectatur, ad extremum usque permaneant.

For at no time will it rest, and in expectation of what is to come it will lose the present things it might enjoy. And grief for a thing lost and fear of losing it stand on a level.

Nullo enim tempore conquiescet et expectatione venturi praesentia, quibus frui poterat, amittet. In aequo est autem amissae rei miseratio et timor amittendae.

Nor do I therefore prescribe carelessness to you. Do you indeed turn aside what is to be feared. Whatever can be foreseen by counsel, foresee. Whatever will harm, watch for and avert long before it comes. To this very thing confidence, and a mind braced to bear all, will most contribute. He can guard against fortune who can bear fortune. Certainly in calm he raises no tumult. Nothing is more wretched or more foolish than to fear beforehand. What madness is this, to run out to meet one’s own evil?

Nec ideo praecipio tibi neglegentiam. Tu vero metuenda declina. Quidquid consilio prospici potest, prospice. Quodcumque laesurum est, multo ante quam accidat, speculare et averte. In hoc ipsum tibi plurimum conferet fiducia et ad tolerandum omne obfirmata mens. Potest fortunam cavere, qui potest ferre. Certe in tranquillo non tumultuatur. Nihil est nec miserius nec stultius quam praetimere. Quae ista dementia est malum suum antecedere?

Finally, to enclose briefly what I feel, and to describe to you those fidgety men, a burden to themselves, as intemperate in their very miseries as they are before them: he grieves more than is needful who grieves before it is needful; for by the same weakness he does not appraise the grief by which he does not await it; by the same intemperance he feigns to himself that his felicity is everlasting, feigns that whatever has fallen to him must grow, not merely last; and, forgetful of this springboard on which human things are tossed, he promises to himself alone a constancy of chance things.

Denique ut breviter includam quod sentio, et istos satagios ac sibi molestos describam tibi, tam intemperantes in ipsis miseriis quam sunt ante illas. Plus dolet quam necesse est, qui ante dolet quam necesse est; eadem enim infirmitate dolorem non aestimat, qua non exspectat; eadem intemperantia fingit sibi perpetuam felicitatem suam, fingit crescere debere quaecumque contigerunt, non tantum durare; et oblitus huius petauri, quo humana iactantur, sibi uni fortuitorum constantiam spondet.

Excellently, then, does Metrodorus seem to me to have said, in that letter in which he addresses his sister on the loss of her son of the finest disposition: “Mortal is every good of mortals.” He speaks of those goods to which men flock. For that true good does not die — it is sure and everlasting: wisdom and virtue; this is the one immortal thing that falls to mortals.

Egregie itaque videtur mihi Metrodorus dixisse in ea epistula, qua sororem amisso optimae indolis filio adloquitur: mortale est omne mortalium bonum. De his loquitur bonis, ad quae concurritur. Nam illud verum bonum non moritur, certum est sempiternumque, sapientia et virtus; hoc unum contingit inmortale mortalibus.

But they are so wicked and so forgetful of where they are going, of how each day disturbs them, that they wonder at losing some single thing — they who in one day will lose all. Whatever it is, you are entered as its owner; it is with you, it is not yours; nothing is firm for the infirm, nothing eternal and unconquered for the fragile. To perish is as necessary as to lose, and this very thing, if we understand it, is a solace. Lose with an even mind: you must perish.

Ceterum tam inprobi sunt tamque obliti, quo eant, quo illos singuli dies turbent, ut mirentur aliquid ipsos amittere amissuri uno die omnia. Quicquid est, dominus inscriberis, apud te est, tuum non est; nihil firmum infirmo, nihil fragili aeternum et invictum est. Tam necesse est perire quam perdere, et hoc ipsum, si intellegimus, solacium est. Aequo animo perde, pereundum est.

What help, then, do we find against these losses? This: to hold in memory what we have lost, and not to let the fruit we took from them fall away together with them. To have a thing is snatched away; to have had it, never. He is most ungrateful who, when he has lost, owes nothing for what he received. Chance snatches the thing from us, but leaves with us its use and enjoyment — which we have thrown away by the unfairness of our longing.

Quid ergo adversus has amissiones auxili invenimus? Hoc, ut memoria teneamus amissa nec cum ipsis fructum excidere patiamur, quem ex illis percepimus. Habere eripitur, habuisse numquam. Peringratus est, qui cum amisit, pro accepto nihil debet. Rem nobis eripit casus, usum fructumque apud nos relinquit, quem nos iniquitate desiderii perdidimus.

Say to yourself: “Of these things that seem terrible, none is unconquered. Single ones many have already conquered: fire Mucius, the cross Regulus, poison Socrates, exile Rutilius, a death driven home by the sword Cato; let us too conquer something.”

Dic tibi: Ex istis, quae terribilia videntur, nihil est invictum. Singula vicere iam multi: ignem Mucius, crucem Regulus, venenum Socrates, exilium Rutilius, mortem ferro adactam Cato; et nosvincamus aliquid.

Again, those things which, as showy and lucky, draw the crowd have been despised by many and often. Fabricius as commander rejected riches, as censor branded them. Tubero judged poverty worthy both of himself and of the Capitol when, using earthenware at the public feast, he showed that a man ought to be content with what the gods even now use. Sextius the father refused honors — he who, though born to take up public life, did not accept the broad stripe though the deified Julius offered it. For he understood that what can be given can also be snatched away. Let us too do something with spirit; let us be among the examples.

Rursus ista, quae ut speciosa et felicia trahunt vulgum, a multis et saepe contempta sunt. Fabricius divitias imperator reiecit, censor notavit. Tubero paupertatem et se dignam et Capitolio iudicavit, cum fictilibus in publica cena usus ostendit debere iis hominem esse contentum, quibus di etiamnunc uterentur. Honores reppulit pater Sextius, qui ita natus, ut rem publicam deberet capessere, latum clavum divo Iulio dante non recepit. Intellegebat enim quod dari posset, et eripi posse. Nos quoque aliquid et ipsi faciamus animose; simus inter exempla.

Why have we failed? Why do we despair? Whatever could be done, can be done; let us only cleanse our mind and follow nature, from which whoever strays must crave and fear and be a slave to chance things. It is allowed to return to the road, allowed to be restored to wholeness; let us be restored, that we may be able to bear pains, in whatever way they have invaded the body, and to say to fortune: “You have to deal with a man; look for someone you can conquer.”

Quare defecimus? Quare desperantes? Quicquid fieri potuit, potest, nos modo purgemus animum sequamurque naturam, a qua aberranti cupiendum timendumque est et fortuitis serviendum. Licet reverti in viam, licet in integrum restitui; restituamur, ut possimus dolores, quocumque modo corpus invaserint, perferre et fortunae dicere: cum viro tibi negotium est; quaere, quem vincas.

By these talks and the like is soothed that violence of the ulcer — which I pray, by Hercules, may be eased, and either healed or stand still and grow old together with the man himself. But I am untroubled about him; it is our loss that is at stake, who are robbed of an excellent old man. For he himself is full of life, who desires nothing added for his own sake, but for the sake of those to whom he is useful.

His sermonibus et his similibus lenitur illa vis ulceris, quam opto mehercules mitigari et aut sanari aut stare et cum ipso senescere. Sed securus de illo sum; de nostro damno agitur, quibus senex egregius eripitur. Nam ipse vitae plenus est, cui adici nihil desiderat sua causa, sed eorum, quibus utilis est.

He acts generously in living on. Another would already have ended these torments; but he thinks it as base to flee death as to take refuge in death. What then? Will he not go out, if the situation advises it? Why should he not go out, if no one can use him any longer? If he will give his labor to nothing but pain?

Liberaliter facit, quod vivit. Alius iam hos cruciatus finisset; hic tam turpe putat mortem fugere quam ad mortem confugere. Quid ergo? Non, si suadebit res, exibit? Quidni exeat, si nemo iam uti eo poterit? Si nihil aliud quam dolori operam dabit?

This, my Lucilius, is to learn philosophy in the doing and to be drilled toward the truth: to see what a prudent man has in his spirit against death, against pain, when the one draws near and the other presses. What is to be done must be learned from one who does it. Up to now it has been argued whether anyone could resist pain, whether death, brought near, could bow even great spirits.

Hoc est, mi Lucili, philosophiam in opere discere et ad verum exerceri: videre, quid homo prudens animi habeat contra mortem, contra dolorem, cum illa accedat, hic premat. Quid faciendum sit, a faciente discendum est. Adhuc argumentis actum est, an posset aliqui dolori resistere, an mors magnos quoque animos admota summittere.

What need of words? Let us go to the matter present before us: neither does death make him braver against pain, nor pain against death. Against both he trusts himself; he neither endures pain patiently in hope of death, nor dies gladly out of weariness of pain; the one he bears, the other he awaits. Farewell.

Quid opus est verbis? In rem praesentem eamus: nec mors illum contra dolorem facit fortiorem nec dolor contra mortem. Contra utrumque sibi fidit nec spe mortis patienter dolet nec taedio doloris libentur moritur; hunc fert, illam expectat. Vale.

The letter which I wrote to Marullus, when he had lost his little son and was said to be bearing it softly, I have sent to you; in it I did not follow the usual custom, nor did I think he ought to be handled gently, since he was more worthy of rebuke than of solace. For to a man stricken, and bearing a great wound ill, one must yield for a little while; let him sate himself, or at least pour out the first onset; but those who have taken grieving upon themselves should be chastised at once, and learn that there are even certain follies in tears.

Epistulam, quam scripsi Marullo, cum filium parvulum amisisset et diceretur molliter ferre, misi tibi, in qua non sum solitum morem secutus nec putavi leniter illum debere tractari, cum obiurgatione esset quam solacio dignior. Adflicto enim et magnum vulnus male fcrenti paulisper cedendum est; exsatiet se aut certe primum impetum effundat; hi, qui sibi lugere sumpserunt, protinus castigentur et discant quasdam etiam lacrimarum ineptias esse.

Do you expect consolations? Take reproaches instead. You bear the death of your son softly; what would you do if you had lost a friend? A son has died, of uncertain promise, a little one; a tiny bit of time has perished.

Solacia expectas? Convicia accipe. Molliter tu fers mortem filii; quid faceres, si amicum perdidisses? Decessit filius incertae spei, parvulus; pusillum temporis periit.

We hunt up causes of grief, and wish to complain even unjustly of fortune, as though she would not furnish just causes of complaint. But, by Hercules, you already seemed to me to have spirit enough even against solid evils, much more against these shadows of evils at which men groan for custom’s sake. The greatest of all losses — if you had lost a friend — you should have taken pains to rejoice more that you had had him than to mourn that you had lost him.

Causas doloris conquirimus et de fortuna etiam inique queri volumus, quasi non sit iustas querendi causas praebitura. At mehercules satis mihi iam videbaris animi habere etiam adversus solida mala, nedum ad istas umbras malorum, quibus ingemescunt homines moris causa. Quod damnorum omnium maximum est, si amicum perdidisses, danda opera erat, ut magis gauderes, quod habueras, quam maereres, quod amiseras.

But most men do not reckon up how much they have received, how much they have rejoiced. This grief has, among its other evils, this: it is not only superfluous but ungrateful. So, because you had such a friend, was the labor lost? In so many years, in so close a joining of life, in so intimate a partnership of studies, was nothing accomplished? Do you bury friendship along with your friend? And why do you grieve at having lost him, if to have had him profits nothing? Believe me, a great part of those we have loved, though chance has taken the men themselves away, remains with us. The time that is past is ours, and nothing is in a safer place than what has been.

Sed plerique non computant, quanta perceperint, quantum gavisi sint. Hoc habet inter reliqua mali dolor iste: non supervacuus tantum, sed ingratus est. Ergo quod habuisti talem amicum, periit opera? Tot annis, tanta coniunctione vitae, tam familiari studiorum societate nil actum est? Cum amico effers amicitiam? Et quid doles amisisse, si habuisse non prodest? Mihi crede, magna pars ex iis, quos amavimus,licet ipsos casus abstulerit, apud nos manet. Nostrum est, quod praeteriit, tempus nec quicquam est loco tutiore quam quod fuit.

We are ungrateful for what we have received, in our hope of the future, as though what is to come, if only it falls to us, will not soon pass into the past. Narrowly does he bound the enjoyment of things who is glad only of the present; both the future and the past delight us — the one by expectation, the other by memory; but the one hangs in doubt and may not come to be, the other cannot but have been. What madness, then, is it to let slip the most certain thing? Let us rest in what we have already drunk in, if only we did not drink with a leaky mind that let through whatever it received.

Ingrati adversus percepta spe futuri sumus, quasi non quod futurum est, si modo successerit nobis, cito in praeterita transiturum sit. Anguste fructus rerum determinat, qui tantum praesentibus laetus est; et futura et praeterita delectant, haec exspectatione, illa memoria, sed alterum pendet et non fieri potest, alterum non potest non fuisse. Quis ergo furor est certissimo excidere? Adquiescamus iis, quae iam hausimus, si modo non perforate animo hauriebamus et transmittente quicquid acceperat.

Countless are the examples of those who have buried young children without tears, who have returned from the pyre to the senate or to some public office and at once turned to other things. And not without reason; for, first, it is superfluous to grieve, if you gain nothing by grieving. Next, it is unfair to complain of what has befallen one man and remains for all. Then the complaint of longing is foolish, where there is the least difference between the lost and the one who longs. We ought, therefore, to be the more even of mind, because we follow those we have lost.

Innumerabilia sunt exempla eorum, qui liberos iuvenes sine lacrimis extulerint, qui in senatum aut in aliquod publicum officium a rogo redierint et statim aliud egerint. Nec inmerito; nam primum supervacuum est dolere, si nihil dolendo proficias. Deinde iniquum est queri de eo, quod uni accidit, omnibus restat. Deinde desiderii stulta conquestio est, ubi minimum interest inter amissum et desiderantem. Eo itaque aequiore animo esse debemus, quod quos amisimus, sequimur.

Look at the speed of swiftest time, think of the brevity of this span through which we run at headlong pace, observe this company of the human race tending to the same end, marked off by the smallest intervals even where they seem greatest; the one you think has perished is only sent ahead. And what is more mad than, when the same road is to be measured out by you, to weep for one who has gone before? Does a man weep at a thing done, when he was not ignorant it would be done? Or, if he did not consider death in a man, he has deceived himself.

Respice celeritatem rapidissimi temporis, cogita brevitatem huius spatii, per quod citatissimi currimus, observa hunc comitatum generis humani eodem tendentis minimis intervallis distinctum, etiam ubi maxima videntur; quem putas perisse, praemissus est. Quid autem dementius quam, cum idem tibi iter emetiendum sit, flere eum, qui antecessit? Fiet aliquis factum, quod non ignoravit futurum? Aut si mortem in homine non cogitavit, sibi inposuit.

Does a man weep at a thing done that he used to say could not but be done? Whoever complains that someone has died, complains that he was a man. The same condition has bound all: to whom it has fallen to be born, it remains to die.

Fiet aliquis factum, quod aiebat non posse non fieri? Quisquis aliquem queritur mortuum esse, queritur hominem fuisse. Omnis eadem condicio devinxit: cui nasci contigit, mori restat.

By intervals we are distinguished, in our exit we are made equal. This that lies between the first day and the last is various and uncertain: if you reckon the troubles, it is long even for a boy; if its swiftness, narrow even for an old man. There is nothing not slippery and deceptive and more shifting than any weather. All things are tossed and pass into their opposite at fortune’s bidding, and in so great a rolling of human affairs nothing is certain to anyone but death. And yet of that, in which alone no one is deceived, all men complain. “But the boy died.” I do not yet say that it goes better with one who is quickly done with life; let us pass to the man who has grown old.

Intervallis distinguimur, exitu aequamur. Hoc quod inter primum diem et ultimum iacet, varium incertumque est: si molestias aestimes, etiam puero longum, si velocitatem, etiam seni angustum. Nihil non lubricum et fallax et omni tempestate mobilius. Iactantur cuncta et in contrarium transeunt iubente fortuna, et in tanta volutatione rerum humanarum nihil cuiquam nisi mors certum est. Tamen de eo queruntur omnes, in quo uno nemo decipitur. Sed puer decessit. Nondum dico melius agi cum eo, qui cito vita defungitur; ad eum transeamus, qui consenuit.

By how little does he beat the infant! Set before you the vastness of the deep of time, and take in the whole; then compare with the immense this that we call a human lifetime — you will see how scanty is what we wish for, what we stretch out. And of this, how much do tears, how much do anxieties take up!

Quantulo vincit infantem! Propone temporis profundi vastitatem et universum complectere, deinde hoc, quod aetatem vocamus humanam, conpara immenso; videbis, quam exiguum sit, quod optamus, quod cxtendimus. Ex hoc quantum lacrimae, quantum sollicitudines occupant!

How much does death, wished for before it comes, take up; how much ill health, how much fear! How much is held by the years that are either raw or useless! Half of it is slept away. Add toils, griefs, dangers, and you will understand that even in the longest life what is lived is the least.

Quantum mors, antequam veniat, optata, quantum valitudo, quantum timor! Quantum tenent aut rudes aut inutiles anni! Dimidium ex hoc edormitur. Adice labores, luctus, pericula, et intelleges etiam in longissima vita minimum esse, quod vivitur.

But who will grant you that it does not go better with him to whom it is allowed to return quickly, for whom the journey was finished before weariness? Life is neither a good nor an evil; it is the place of good and evil. So he has lost nothing but a throw more sure to be a loss. He might have turned out modest and prudent, might under your care have been shaped to better things; but — what is more justly feared — he might have become like the many.

Sed quis tibi concedet non melius se habere eum, cui cito reverti licet, cui ante lassitudinem peractum est iter? Vita nec bonum nec malum est; boni ac mali locus est. Ita nihil ille perdidit nisi aleam in damnum certiorem. Potuit evadere modestus et prudens, potuit sub cura tua in meliora formari, sed, quod iustius timetur, potuit fieri pluribus similis.

Look at those youths whom luxury has flung from the noblest houses into the arena; look at those who, shameless by turns, ply their own lust and others’, of whom not one passes a day without drunkenness, not one without some notable disgrace; it will be plain that there was more to be feared than to be hoped. You ought not, then, to summon up causes of grief, nor to heap up slight discomforts by taking them ill.

Aspice illos iuvenes, quos ex nobilissimis domibus in harenam luxuria proiecit; aspice illos, qui suam alienamque libidinem exercent mutuo inpudici, quorum nullus sine ebrietate, nullus sine aliquo insigni flagitio dies exit; plus timeri quam sperari potuisse manifestum erit. Non debes itaque causas doloris accersere nec levia incommoda indignando cumulare.

I do not exhort you to brace yourself and rise; I do not judge so ill of you as to think you must call up your whole virtue against this. It is not grief, but a sting; you make it grief. Without doubt philosophy has profited much, if you long with a brave spirit for a boy still better known to his nurse than to his father.

Non hortor, ut nitaris et surgas; non tam male de te iudico, ut tibi adversus hoc totam putem virtutem advocandam. Non est dolor iste, sed morsus; tu illum dolorem facis. Sine dubio multum philosophia profecit,si puerum nutrici adhuc quam patri notiorem animo forti desideras.

What then? Do I now counsel hardness, and wish the face to stiffen at the very funeral, and not even suffer the mind to contract? By no means. That is inhumanity, not virtue — to see the funerals of one’s own with the same eyes as the men themselves, and not to be stirred at the first tearing-away of intimates. But suppose I forbade it: some things are their own masters. Tears fall even from those who hold them back, and, poured out, they relieve the mind.

Quid? Nunc ego duritiam suadeo et in funere ipso rigere vultum volo et animum ne contrahi quidem patior? Minime. Inhumanitas est ista, non virtus, funera suorum isdem oculis, quibus ipsos, videre nec commoveri ad primam familiarium divulsionem. Puta autem me vetare; quaedam sunt sui iuris. Excidunt etiam retinentibus lacrimae et animum profusae levant.

What, then? Let us permit them to fall, but not command it; let as much flow as feeling has cast out, not as much as imitation demands. Let us add nothing to mourning, nor swell it to another’s example. The display of grief demands more than grief: how few are sad for themselves! They groan more loudly when they are heard, and, quiet and still while it is private, are roused to fresh weeping when they catch sight of someone. Then they lay hands on their own head — which they might have done more freely with none to forbid — then they pray death upon themselves, then they roll out of bed; without a spectator, grief flags.

Quid ergo est? Permittamus illis cadere, non imperemus, fluat, quantum adfectus eiecerit, non quantum poscet imitatio. Nihil vero maerori adiciamus nec illum ad alienum augeamus exemplum. Plus ostentatio doloris exigit quam dolor: quotus quisque sibi tristis est! Clarius, cum audiuntur, gemunt et taciti quietique dum secretum est, cum aliquos videre, in fletus novos excitantur. Tunc capiti suo manus ingerunt, quod potuerant facere nullo prohibente liberius, tunc mortem comprecantur sibi, tunc lectulo devolvuntur; sine spectatore cessat dolor.

This vice follows us in this matter as in others: to be ordered by the example of the many, and to look not at what is fitting but at what is customary. We depart from nature and give ourselves to the crowd — a bad authority for anything, and in this, as in all else, most inconstant. It sees someone brave in his grief: it calls him impious and savage; it sees another collapsing and fallen upon the body: it calls him effeminate and unmanned.

Sequitur nos ut in aliis rebus, ita in hac quoque hoc vitium, ad plurium exempla componi nec quid oporteat, sed quid soleat, aspicere. A natura discedimus, populo nos damus nullius rei bono auctori et in hac re sicut in aliis omnibus inconstantissimo. videt aliquem fortem in luctu suo: impium vocat et efferatum; videt aliquem conlabentem et corpori adfusum: effeminatum ait et enervem.

All things, then, must be called back to reason. But nothing is more foolish than to court a reputation for sadness and to approve tears, which I judge — in a wise man — to fall some by permission, some borne by their own force. I will say what the difference is. When the first message of a bitter death has struck us, when we hold the body that is to pass from our embrace into the fire, natural necessity wrings out tears; and the breath, struck by the blow of grief, as it shakes the whole body, so shakes the eyes too, and presses out and expels the moisture that lies near them.

Omnia itaque ad rationem revocanda sunt. Stultius vero nihil est quam famam captare tristitiae et lacrimas adprobare, quas iudico sapienti viro alias permissas cadere, alias vi sua latas. Dicam quid intersit. Cum primus nos nuntius acerbi funeris perculit, cum tenemus corpus e complexu nostro in ignem transiturum, lacrimas naturalis necessitas exprimit et spiritus ictu doloris inpulsus quemadmodum totum corpus quatit, ita oculos, quibus adiacentem umorem perpremit et expellit.

These tears fall by being pressed out, against our will; others are those to which we give an outlet, when the memory of those we have lost is handled again. And there is something sweet in sadness, when their pleasant talk comes to mind, their cheerful company, their dutiful affection; then the eyes are relaxed as if in joy. To these we indulge; by those we are conquered.

Hae lacrimae per elisionem cadunt nolentibus nobis; aliae sunt, quibus exitum damus, cum memoria eorum, quos amisimus, retractatur. Et inest quiddam dulce tristitiae, cum occurrunt sermones eorum iucundi, conversatio hilaris, officiosa pietas; tunc oculi velut in gaudio relaxantur. His indulgemus, illis vincimur.

There is no reason, then, why, because of the circle standing and sitting by, you should either hold back tears or force them; they neither cease nor flow ever so basely as when they are feigned; let them go of their own accord. And they can go in men calm and composed. Often, with the wise man’s authority unimpaired, they have flowed with so great a measure that neither humanity nor dignity was lacking in them. One may, I say, obey nature with gravity preserved.

Non est itaque, quod lacrimas propter circulum adstantem adsidentemque aut contineas aut exprimas; nec cessant nec fluunt umquam tam turpiter quam fmguntur; eant sua sponte. Ire autem possunt placidis atque compositis. Saepe salva sapientis auctoritate fluxerunt tanto temperamento, ut illis nec humanitas nec dignitas deesset. Licet, inquam, naturae obsequi gravitate servata.

I myself have seen men worthy of reverence at the funeral of their own, in whose face love stood out, with all the staging of mourners removed; there was nothing but what was given to true feeling. There is even a seemliness in grieving; this the wise man must keep, and, as in other things, so in tears too there is an “enough”; of the imprudent the griefs, like the joys, have overflowed.

Vidi ego in funere suorum verendos, in quorum ore amor eminebat remota omni lugentium scaena, nihil erat nisi quod veris dabatur adfectibus. Est aliquis et dolendi decor; hic sapienti servandus est et quemadmodum in ceteris rebus, ita etiam in lacrimis aliquid sat est; inprudentium ut gaudia sic dolores exundavere.

Receive the necessary with an even mind. What incredible, what new thing has happened? For how many, this very moment, is a funeral being arranged; for how many are grave-clothes being bought; how many mourn after your mourning! As often as you remember that he was a boy, remember too that he was a man, to whom nothing certain is promised, whom fortune does not by any means lead to old age — she lets him go when it has seemed good to her.

Aequo animo excipe necessaria. Quid incredibile, quid novum evenit? Quam multis cum maxime funus locatur, quam multis vitalia emuntur, quam multi post luctum tuum lugent! Quotiens cogitaveris puerum fuisse, cogita et hominem, cui nihil certi promittitur, quem fortuna non utique perducit ad senectutem; unde visum est, dimittit.

For the rest, speak of him often, and celebrate his memory as much as you can. It will return to you the oftener, if it comes without bitterness; for no one willingly keeps company with one who is sad, much less with sadness itself. If you had heard with pleasure any sayings of his, any jests however childish, repeat them the oftener; boldly affirm that he could have fulfilled the hopes which you had conceived with a father’s mind.

Ceterum frequenter de illo loquere et memoriam eius, quantum potes, celebra. Quae ad te saepius revertetur, si erit sine acerbitate ventura; nemo enim libenter tristi conversatur, nedum tristitiae. Si quos sermones eius, si quos quamvis parvoli iocos cum voluptate audieras, saepius repete; potuisse illum implere spes tuas, quas paterna mente conceperas, audacter adfirma.

But to forget one’s own, to bury their memory together with their bodies, to weep most lavishly and remember most sparingly — that is the mark of an inhuman mind. So birds, so beasts love their young, whose love is violent and almost frenzied, but is wholly extinguished when they are lost. This does not befit a prudent man: let him persevere in remembering, let him cease to mourn.

Oblivisci quidem suorum ac memoriam cum corporibus efferre et effusissime flere, meminisse parcissime,—inhumani animi est. Sic aves, sic ferae suos diligunt, quarum concitatus est amor et paene rabidus, sed cum amissis totus extinguitur. Hoc prudentem virum non decet; meminisse perseveret, lugere desinat.

That I in no way approve which Metrodorus says: that there is a certain pleasure akin to sadness, and that it is to be hunted at such a time. I have set down Metrodorus’s own words: “From the Letters of Metrodorus to his Sister: For there is a certain pleasure akin to grief, which one must hunt after at such a season.”

Illud nullo modo probo, quod ait Metrodorus: esse aliquam cognatam tristitiae voluptatem, hanc esse captandam in eiusmodi tempore. Ipsa Metrodori verba subscripsi. Μητροδώρου ἐπιστολῶν πρὸς τὴν ἀδελφήν. Ἔστιν γάρ τις ἡδονὴ λύπῃ συγγενής, ἣν χρὴ θηρεύειν κατὰ τοῦτον τὸν καιρόν.

About these I do not doubt what you will feel. For what is baser than to hunt pleasure in grief itself — nay, through grief — and to seek, even among tears, what may please? These are the men who charge us with too much rigor and defame our precepts as harsh, because we say that grief must either not be admitted into the mind, or be quickly expelled. Which, in the end, is the more incredible or the more inhuman — to feel no grief at a friend’s loss, or to go fowling for pleasure in grief itself?

De quibus non dubito quid sis sensurus. Quid enim est turpius quam captare in ipso luctu voluptatem, immo per luctum, et inter lacrimas quoque quod iuvet, quaerere? Hi sunt, qui nobis obiciunt nimium rigorem et infamant praecepta nostra duritiae, quod dicamus dolorem aut admittendum in animum non esse aut cito expellendum. Utrum tandem est aut incredibiles aut inhumanius non sentire amisso amico dolorem an voluptatem in ipso dolore aucupari?

What we prescribe is honorable: that when feeling has poured out some tears and, so to speak, foamed them off, the mind is not to be handed over to grief. What — do you say that pleasure is to be mixed with grief itself? So we console children with a sweet cake, so we check the weeping of infants by pouring in milk. Not even at the time when a son burns or a friend breathes his last do you let pleasure rest, but you wish to tickle grief itself? Which is more honorable — that grief be removed from the mind, or that pleasure be admitted even to grief? Admitted, do I say? Hunted, and that out of grief itself?

Nos quod praecipimus, honestum est; cum aliquid lacrimarum adfectus effuderit et, ut ita dicam, despumaverit, non esse tradendum animum dolori. Quid, tu dicis miscendam ipsi dolori voluptatem? Sic consolamur crustulo pueros, sic infantium fletum infuso lacte conpescimus. Ne illo quidem tempore, quo filius ardet aut amicus expirat, cessare pateris voluptatem, sed ipsum vis titillare maerorem? Utrum honestius dolor ab animo summovetur an voluptas ad dolorem quoque admittitur? Admittitur dico? Captatur et quidem ex ipso.

“There is,” he says, “a certain pleasure akin to sadness.” That we may say, but you indeed may not. You know one good, pleasure, one evil, pain; what kinship can there be between good and evil? But suppose there is one; is now of all times the moment to dig it out? Do we even ransack grief itself, to see whether it has anything pleasant and full of pleasure about it?

Est aliqua inquit voluptas cognata tristitiae. Istuc nobis licet dicere, vobis quidem non licet. Unum bonum nostis voluptatem, unum malum dolorem; quae potest inter bonum et malum esse cognatio? Sed puta esse; nunc potissimum eruitur? Et ipsum dolorem scrutamur, an quid habeat iucundum circa se et voluptarium?

Certain remedies, wholesome to some parts of the body, cannot be applied to others as foul and unseemly, and what elsewhere would profit without harm to modesty becomes dishonorable at the place of a wound. Are you not ashamed to heal grief with pleasure? That wound must be cured more sternly. Urge rather this: that no sense of evil reaches him who has perished; for if it reaches him, he has not perished.

Quaedam remedia aliis partibus corporis salutaria velut foeda et indecora adhiberi aliis nequeunt, et quod aliubi prodesset sine damno verecundiae, id fit inhonestum loco vulneris. Non te pudet luctum voluptate sanare? Severius ista plaga curanda est. Illud potius admone, nullum mali sensum ad eum, qui periit, pervenire; nam si pervenit, non periit.

Nothing, I say, harms him who is nothing; he lives, if he is harmed. Which do you think is ill for him — that he is nothing, or that he is still someone? And yet no torment can come to him from that which is not; for what feeling has nothingness? Nor from that which is; for he has escaped the greatest discomfort of death — not to be.

Nulla, inquam, res eum laedit, qui nullus est; vivit, si laeditur. Utrum putas illi male esse, quod nullus est, an quod est adhuc aliquis? Atqui nec ex eo potest ei tormentum esse, quod non est; quis enim nullius sensus est? Nee ex eo, quod est; effugit enim maximum mortis incommodum, non esse.

This too let us say to him who weeps and longs for one snatched away in early youth: all of us, as to the brevity of our age, if you compare it with the universe, both young and old, are on a level. For less comes to us out of all our age than what one might call the least, since indeed the least is some part. This that we live is next to nothing; and yet — O our madness! — it is laid out broadly.

Illud quoque dicamus ei, qui deflet ac desiderat in aetate prima raptum: omnes, quantum ad brevitatem aevi, si universo conpares, et iuvenes et senes, in aequo sumus. Minus enim ad nos ex aetate omni venit quam quod minimum esse quis dixerit, quoniam quidem minimum aliqua pars est. Hoc quod vivimus, proximum nihilost; et tamen, o dementiam nostram, late disponitur.

These things I have written to you, not as one expecting you to look for a remedy so late — for it is clear to me that you have said to yourself whatever you are going to read — but that I might chastise that slight delay in which you withdrew from yourself, and exhort you for the future to raise your spirits against fortune, and to foresee all her weapons, not as though they could come, but as though they were surely going to come. Farewell.

Haec tibi scripsi, non tamquam expectaturus esses remedium tam serum, liquet enim mihi te locutum tecum quicquid lecturus es, sed ut castigarem exiguam illam moram, qua a te recessisti, et in reliquom adhortarer, contra fortunam tolleres animos et omnia eius tela, non tamquam possent venire, sed tamquam utique essent ventura, prospiceres. Vale.

You write that you have read most eagerly the books of Papirius Fabianus entitled “Of Civil Affairs,” and that they did not answer your expectation; then, forgetting that a philosopher is in question, you find fault with his composition. Suppose it is as you say, and that the words are poured out rather than set in place: first, that very thing has its own grace, and there is a beauty proper to a discourse that glides gently. For I think it makes a great difference whether a thing has fallen out or has flowed. Add now that in this very point I am about to make there is a vast difference: Fabianus seems to me not to pour out his discourse, but to pour it forth — so abundant is it, and coming without disturbance, yet not without a current.

Fabiani Papiri libros, qui inscribuntur Civilium, legisse te cupidissime scribis, et non respondisse cxpectationi tuae, deinde oblitus de philosopho agi conpositionem eius accusas. Puta esse quod dicis et effundi verba, non figi; primum habet ista res suam gratiam et est decor proprius orationis leniter lapsae. Multum enim interesse existimo, utrum exciderit an fluxerit. Adice nunc, quod in hoc quoque, quod dicturus sum, ingens differentia est: Fabianus mihi non effundere videtur orationem, sed fundere; adeo larga est et sine perturbatione, non sine cursu tamen veniens.

This indeed he plainly admits and prefers: that it has not been worked over nor long twisted. But let us grant it to be as you wish: he composed his morals, not his words, and wrote those things for minds, not for ears.

Illud plane fatetur et praefert, non esse tractatam nec diu tortam. Sed ita, ut vis, esse credamus; mores ille, non verba conposuit et animis scripsit ista, non auribus.

Besides, when he himself was speaking, you would have had no leisure to examine the parts, so wholly would the sum of it have swept you away; and as a rule the things that please by their rush show less well when brought back to the hand. But this too is much — to have seized the eyes at first sight, even if a careful contemplation is going to find something to censure.

Praeterea ipso dicente non vacasset tibi partes intueri, adeo te summa rapuisset; et fere quae inpetu placent, minus praestant ad manum relata. Sed illud quoque multum est primo aspectu oculos occupasse, etiam si contemplatio diligens inventura est quod arguat.

If you ask me, the greater man is he who has carried off the verdict than he who has deserved it; and I know that this latter is the safer, I know that he can promise himself more boldly about the future. An anxious style does not befit a philosopher; where, in the end, will he be brave and steadfast, where will he make trial of himself in danger, who fears his words?

Si me interrogas, maior ille est, qui iudicium abstulit quam qui meruit; et scio hunc tutiorem esse, scio audacius sibi de futuro promittere. Oratio sollicita philosophum non decet; ubi tandem erit fortis et constans, ubi periculum sui faciet, qui timet verbis?

Fabianus was not careless in his style, but unconcerned. And so you will find nothing sordid: the words are chosen, not hunted, nor — after the fashion of this age — set against their own nature and inverted; splendid, nevertheless, though taken from the midst. The thoughts are honorable and magnificent, not forced into an epigram, but spoken more amply. We shall see what is too little pruned, what too little built, what not of this recent polish; when you have looked round at all, you will see no empty narrownesses.

Fabianus non erat neglegens in oratione, sed securus. Itaque nihil invenies sordidum: electa verba sunt, non captata nec huius saeculi more contra naturam suam posita et inversa, splendida tamen, quamvis sumantur e medio. Sensus honestos et magnificos habes, non coactos in sententiam, sed latius dictos. videbimus, quid parum recisum sit, quid parum structum, quid non huius recentis politurae; cum circumspexeris omnia, nullas videbis angustias inanis.

Let there be lacking, by all means, the variety of marbles, and the water channeled to flow between the bedchambers, and the poor man’s cell, and whatever else luxury, not content with simple beauty, mixes in; as the saying goes, the house is sound. Add now that there is no agreement about composition. Some would have it culled from the rough; some so delight in the harsh that even what chance has unfolded more smoothly they break up on purpose and snap off the clausulae, lest they answer expectation.

Desit sane varietas marmorum et concisura aquarum cubiculis interfluentium et pauperis cella et quicquid aliud luxuria non contenta decore simplici miscet; quod dici solet, domus recta est. Adice nunc, quod de compositione non constat. Quidam illam volunt esse ex horrido comptam, quidam usque eo aspera gaudent, ut etiam quae mollius casus explicuit, ex industria dissipent et clausulas abrumpant, ne ad expectatum respondeant.

Read Cicero: his composition is one whole; it bends its foot slowly and is soft without disgrace. But, on the contrary, that of Asinius Pollio is rugged and leaping, and apt to leave you where you least expect it. In short, in Cicero everything ends; in Pollio everything falls — except a very few things, which are bound to a fixed measure and to a single pattern.

Lege Ciceronem: compositio eius una est, pedem curvat lenta et sine infamia mollis. At contra Pollionis Asinii salebrosa et exiliens et ubi minime exspectes, relictura. Denique omnia apud Ciceronem desinunt, aput Pollionem cadunt exceptis paucissimis, quae ad certum modum et ad unum exemplar adstricta sunt.

Besides, you say that everything seems to you low and too little lofty; of which fault I judge him free. For those things are not low, but placid, and shaped to a quiet and composed tenor of mind — not sunken, but level. There is lacking in them the oratorical vigor and the goads you look for, and the sudden strokes of epigram. But look how trim the whole body is: it is honorable. His style does not have, but will give, dignity.

Humilia praeterea tibi videri dicis omnia et parum erecta; quo vitio carere eum iudico. Non sunt enim humilia illa sed placida et ad animi tenorem quietum compositumque formata, nec depressa sed plana. Deest illis oratorius vigor stimulique, quos quaeris, et subiti ictus sententiarum. Sed totum corpus videris quam sit comptum; honestum est. Non habet oratio eius, sed dabit, dignitatem.

Bring forward someone you can set above Fabianus. Name Cicero, whose books bearing on philosophy are almost as many as Fabianus’s; I will yield — but a thing is not at once tiny, if it is somewhat less than the greatest. Name Asinius Pollio; I will yield, and reply: in so great a matter, to stand out is to be third. Name still Titus Livius — for he wrote dialogues too, which you could no more count as philosophy than as history, and books expressly containing philosophy; to him too I will give a place. See, nevertheless, how many he outstrips, who is beaten by three — and by three of the most eloquent.

Adfer, quem Fabiano possis praeponere. Dic Ciceronem, cuius libri ad philosophiam pertinentes paene totidem sunt, quot Fabiani; cedam, sed non statim pusillum est, si quid maximo minus est. Dic Asinium Pollionem; cedam, et respondeamus: in re tanta eminere est post duos esse. Nomina adhuc. T. Livium, scripsit enim et dialogos, quos non magis philosophiae adnumerare possis quam historiae, et ex professo philosophiam continentis libros; huic quoque dabo locum. Vide tamen, quam multos antecedat, qui a tribus vincitur et tribus eloquentissimis.

But he does not furnish everything: his style is not strong, though it is lofty; not violent or a torrent, though it is full; not transparent, but pure. “You would miss,” you say, “something said harshly against the vices, bravely against dangers, proudly against fortune, contemptuously against ambition; I want luxury upbraided, lust paraded, willfulness broken. Let there be something oratorically sharp, tragically grand, comically lean.” You want him to sit down to a paltry thing — to words; but he has given himself over to the greatness of his matter, and draws eloquence after him like a shadow, not making that his aim.

Sed non praestat omnia: non est fortis oratio eius, quamvis elata sit; non est violenta nec torrens, quamvis effusa sit; non est perspicua, sed pura. Desideres, inquis, contra vitia aliquid aspere dici, contra pericula animose, contra fortunam superbe, contra ambitionem contumeliose, volo luxuriam obiurgari, libidinem traduci, inpotentiam frangi. Sit aliquid oratorie acre, tragice grande, comice exile. Vis illum adsidere pusillae rei, verbis; ille rerum se magnitudini addixit, eloquentiam velut umbram non hoc agens trahit.

No doubt the single parts will not all be looked round and gathered into themselves, nor will every word rouse and prick — I admit it. Much will go out without striking, and now and then the discourse will glide idly by; but there will be much light in all of it, and a vast space without weariness. Finally, it will achieve this: that it be clear to you he felt what he wrote. You will understand that the aim was that you should know what pleased him, not that he should please you. All tends toward profit, toward a good mind; applause is not sought.

Non erunt sine dubio singula circumspecta nec in se collecta nec omne verbum excitabit ac punget, fateor. Exibunt multa nec ferient et interdum otiosa praeterlabetur oratio, sed multum erit in omnibus lucis, sed ingens sine taedio spatium. Denique illud praestabit, ut liqueat tibi illum sensisse quae scripsit. Intelleges hoc actum, ut tu scires quid illi placeret, non ut ille placeret tibi. Ad profectum omnia tendunt, ad bonam mentem, non quaeritur plausus.

I do not doubt that his writings are such, even though I recall them rather than hold them, and their color clings to me not from recent and intimate acquaintance, but summarily, as it usually does from an old familiarity. When at least I was listening to him, such things seemed to me — not solid, but full — such as would lift up a young man of good disposition and call him to imitate them, without despair of surpassing; which seems to me the most effective kind of exhortation. For he would only deter who created the desire of imitating but took away the hope. For the rest, he abounded in words, magnificent on the whole, without the commendation of the single parts. Farewell.

Talia esse scripta eius non dubito, etiam si magis reminiscor quam teneo haeretque mihi color eorum non ex recenti conversatione familiariter, sed summatim, ut solet ex vetere notitia. Cum audirem certe illum, talia mihi videbantur, non solida, sed plena, quae adulescentem indolis bonae attollerent et ad imitationem sui evocarent sine desperatione vincendi, quae mihi adhortatio videtur efficacissima. Deferret enim qui imitandi cupiditatem fecit, spem abstulit. Ceterum verbis abundabat, sine commendatione partium singularum in universum magnificus. Vale. Omnis dies, omnis hora quam nihil simus ostendit et aliquo argumento recenti admonet fragilitatis oblitos; tum aeterna meditatos respicere cogit ad mortem. Quid sibi istud principium velit quaeris? Senecionem Cornelium, equitem Romanum splendidum et officiosum, noveras: ex tenui principio se ipse promoverat et iam illi declivis erat cursus ad cetera. Facilius enim crescit dignitas quam incipit. Pecunia quoque circa paupertatem plurimum morae habet, dum ex illa erepat haeret. Iam Senecio divitiis imminebat, ad quas illum duae res ducebant efficacissimae, et quaerendi et custodiendi scientia, quarum vel altera locupletem facere potuisset. Hic homo summae frugalitatis, non minus patrimonii quam corporis diligens, cum me ex consuetudine mane vidisset, cum per totum diem amico graviter adfecto et sine spe iacenti usque in noctem adsedisset, cum hilaris cenasset, genere valitudinis praecipiti arreptus, angina, vix conpressum artatis faucibus spiritum traxit in lucem. Intra paucissimas ergo horas, quam omnibus erat sani ac valentis officiis functus, decessit. Insere nunc, Meliboee, piros, pone ordine vites. Omnia, mihi crede, etiam felicibus dubia sunt. Nihil sibi quisquam de futuro debet promittere. Id quoque, quod tenetur, per manus exit et ipsam, quam premimus, horam casus incidit, volvitur tempus rata quidem lege, sed per obscurum; quid autem ad me, an naturae certum sit quod mihi incertum est? Navigationes longas et pererratis litoribus alienis seros in patriam reditus proponimus, militiam et castrensium laborum tarda manipretia, procurationes officiorumque per officia processus, cum interim ad latus mors est, quae quoniam numquam cogitatur nisi aliena, subinde nobis ingeruntur mortalitatis exempla non diutius quam dum miramur haesura. Quid autem stultius quam mirari id ullo die factum, quod omni potest fieri? Stat quidem terminus nobis, ubi illum inexorabilis fatorum necessitas fixit, sed nemo scit nostrum, quam prope versetur terminum. Sic itaque formemus animum, tamquam ad extrema ventum sit. Nihil differamus. Cotidie cum vita paria faciamus. Maximum vitae vitium est, quod inperfecta semper est, quod aliquid ex illa differtur. Qui cotidie vitae suae summam manum inposuit, non indiget tempore. Ex hac autem indigentia timor nascitur et cupiditas futuri exedens animum. Nihil est miserius dubitatione venientium quorsus evadant; quantum sit illud quod restat aut quale, sollicita mens inexplicabili formidine agitatur. Quo modo effugiemus hanc volutationem? Uno, si vita nostra non prominebit, si in se colligitur. Ille enim ex futuro suspenditur, cui inritum est praesens. Ubi vero, quidquid mihi debui, redditum est, ubi stabilita mens scit nihil interesse inter diem et saeculum, quicquid deinceps dierum rerumque venturum est, ex alto prospicit et cum multo risu seriem temporum cogitat. Quid enim varietas mobilitasque casuum perturbabit, si certus sis adversus incerta? Ideo propera, Lucili mi, vivere et singulos dies singulas vitas puta. Qui hoc modo se aptavit, cui vita sua cotidie fuit tota, securus est; in spem viventibus proximum quodque tempus elabitur subitque aviditas et miserrimus ac miserrima omnia efficiens metus mortis. Inde illud Maecenatis turpissimum votum, quo et debilitatem non recusat et deformitatem et novissime acutam crucem, dummodo inter haec mala spiritus prorogetur: Debilem facito manu, debilem pede coxo, Tuber adstrue gibberum, lubricos quate dentes; Vita dum superest, benest; hanc mihi, vel acuta Si sedeam cruce, sustine. Quod miserrimum erat, si incidisset, optatur et tamquam vita petitur supplici mora. Contemptissimum putarem, si vivere vellet usque ad crucem: Tu ver, inquit, me debilites licet, dum spiritus in corpore fracto et inutili maneat. Depraves licet, dum monstroso et distorto temporis aliquid accedat. Suffigas Meet et acutam sessuro crucem subdas. Est tanti vulnus suum premere et patibulo pendere districtum, dum differat id, quod est in malis optimum, supplicii finem? Est tanti habere animam, ut agam? Usque adeone mori miserum est? Invenitur aliquis, qui velit inter supplicia tabescere et perire membratim et totiens per stilicidia emittere animam quam semel exhalare? Invenitur, qui velit adactus ad illud infelix lignum, iam debilis, iam pravus et in foedum scapularum ac pectoris tuber elisus, cui multae moriendi causae etiam citra crucem fuerant, trahere animam tot tormenta tracturam? Nega nunc magnum beneficium esse naturae, quod necesse est mori. Multi peiora adhuc pacisci parati sunt: etiam amicum prodere, ut diutius vivant, et liberos ad stuprum manu sua tradere, ut contingat lucem videre tot consciam scelerum, Excutienda vitae cupido est discendumque nihil interesse, quando patiaris, quod quandoque patiendum est. Quam bene vivas refert, non quam diu; saepe autem in hoc est bene, ne diu. Vale. Quomodo molestus est iucundum somnium videnti qui excitat, aufert enim voluptatem, etiam si falsam, effectum tamen verae habentem; sic epistula tua mihi fecit iniuriam. Revocavit enim me cogitationi aptae traditum et iturum, si licuisset, ulterius. Iuvabat de aeternitate animarum quaerere, immo mehercules credere. Praebebam enim me facilem opinionibus magnorum virorum rem gratissimam promittentium magis quam probantium. Dabam me spei tantae. Iam eram fastidio mihi, iam reliquias aetatis infractae contemnebam in immensum illud tempus et in possessionem omnis aevi transiturus; cum subito experrectus sum epistula tua accepta et tam bellum somnium perdidi. Quod repetam, si te dimisero, et redimam. Negat me epistula prima totam quaestionem explicuisse, in qua probare conabar id quod nostris placet, claritatem, quae post mortem contingit, bonum esse. Id enim me non solvisse, quod opponitur nobis: Nullum, inquiunt, bonum ex distantibus. Hoc autem ex distantibus constat. Quod interrogas, mi Lucili, eiusdem quaestionis est loci alterius, et ideo non hoc tantum, sed alia quoque eodem pertinentia distuleram. Quaedam enim, ut scis, moralibus rationalia inmixta sunt. Itaque illam partem rectam et ad mores pertinentem tractavi: numquid stultum sit ac supervacuum ultra extremum diem curas, transmittere, an cadant bona nostra nobiscum nihilque sit eius, qui nullus est, an ex eo, quod, cum erit, sensuri non sumus, antequam sit, aliquis fructus percipi aut peti possit. Haec omnia mores spectant; itaque suo loco posita sunt. At quae a dialecticis contra hanc opinionem dicuntur, segreganda fuerunt et ideo seposita sunt. Nunc, quia omnia exigis, omnia quae dicunt persequar, deinde singulis occurram. Nisi aliquid praedixero, intellegi non poterunt quae refellentur. Quid est, quod praedicere velim? Quaedam continua corpora esse, ut hominem; quaedam esse composita, ut navem, domum, omnia denique, quorum diversae partes iunctura in unum coactae sunt; quaedam ex distantibus, quorum adhuc membra separata sunt, tamquam exercitus, populus, senatus. Illi enim, per quos ista corpora efficiuntur, iure aut officio cohaerent, natura diducti et singuli sunt. Quid est, quod etiamnunc praedicere velim? Nullum bonum putamus esse, quod ex distantibus constat. Uno enim spiritu unum bonum contineri ac regi debet, unum esse unius boni principale. Hoc si quando desideraveris, per se probatur; interim ponendum fuit, quia in nos nostra tela mittuntur. Dicitis, inquit, nullum bonum ex distantibus esse? Claritas autem ista bonorum virorum secunda opinio est. Nam quomodo fama non est unius sermo nec infamia unius mala existimatio, sic nec claritas uni bono placuisse. Consentire in hoc plures insignes et spectabiles viri debent, ut claritas sit. Haec autem ex iudiciis plurium efficitur, id est distantium; ergo non est bonum. Claritas, inquit, laus est a bonis bono reddita; laus oratio, vox est aliquid significans; vox est autem, licet virorum sit bonorum, non bonum. Nec enim quicquid vir bonus facit, bonum est. Nam et plaudit et sibilat, sed nec plausum quisquam nec sibilum, licet omnia eius admiretur et laudet, bonum dicit, non magis quam sternumentum aut tussim. Ergo claritas bonum non est. Ad summam dicite nobis, utrum laudantis an laudati bonum sit: si laudati bonum esse dicitis, tam ridiculam rem facitis, quam si adfirmetis meum esse, quod alius bene valeat. Sed laudare dignos honesta actio est; ita laudantis bonum est, cuius actio est, non nostrum, qui laudamur. Atqui hoc quaerebatur. Respondebo nunc singulis cursim. Primum, an sit aliquod ex distantibus bonum, etiamnunc quaeritur et pars utraque sententias habet. Deinde claritas desiderat multa suffragia? Potest et unius boni viri iudicio esse contenta; unus nos bonus bonos iudicat. Quid ergo? inquit, et fama erit unius hominis existimatio et infamia unius malignus sermo? Gloriam quoque, inquit, latius fusam intellego, consensum enim multorum exigit. Diversa horum condicio est et illius. Quare? Quia, si de me bene vir bonus sentit, eodem loco sum, quo si omnes boni idem sentirent; omnes enim, si me cognoverint, idem sentient. Par illis idemque iudicium est, aeque vero inficiscitur. Dissidere non possunt; ita pro eo est, ac si omnes idem sentiant, quia aliud sentire non possunt. Ad gloriam aut famam non est satis unius opinio. Illic idem potest una sententia, quod omnium, quia omnium, si perrogetur, una erit; hic diversa dissimilium iudicia sunt. Difficiles adfectus, dubia omnia invenies, levia, suspecta. Putas tu posse unam omnium esse sententiam? Non est unius una sententia. Illi placet verum, veritatis una vis, una facies est; apud hos falsa sunt, quibus adsentiuntur. Numquam autem falsis constantia est: variantur et dissident. Sed laus, inquit, nihil aliud quam vox est, vox autem bonum non est. Cum dicunt claritatem esse laudem bonorum a bonis redditam, non ad vocem referunt, sed ad sententiam. Licet enim vir bonus taceat, sed aliquem iudicet dignum laude esse, laudatus est. Praeterea aliud est laus, aliud laudatio, haec et vocem exigit. Itaque nemo dicit laudem funebrem, sed laudationem, cuius officium oratione constat. Cum dicimus aliquem laude dignum, non verba illi benigna hominum, sed iudicia promittimus. Ergo laus etiam taciti est bene sentientis ac bonum virum apud se laudantis. Deinde, ut dixi, ad animum refertur laus, non ad verba, quae conceptam laudem egerunt et in notitiam plurium emittunt. Laudat qui laudandum esse iudicat. Cum tragicus ille apud nos ait magnificum esse laudari a laudato viro, laude digno ait. Et cum aeque antiquus poeta ait laus alit artis. non laudationem dicit, quae corrumpit artes. Nihil enim aeque et eloquentiam et omne aliud studium auribus deditum vitiavit quam popularis adsensio. Fama vocem utique desiderat, claritas potest etiam citra vocem contingere contenta iudicio. Plena est non tantum inter tacentis, sed etiam inter reclamantis. Quid intersit inter claritatem et gloriam dicam: gloria multorum iudiciis constat, claritas bonorum, Cuius, inquit, bonum est claritas, id est laus bono a bonis reddita? Utrum laudati an laudantis? Utriusque, Meum, qui laudor; quia natura me amantem omnium genuit, et bene fecisse gaudeo, et gratos me invenisse virtutum interpretes laetor; hoc plurium bonum est, quod grati sunt, sed et meum. Ita enim animo conpositus sum, ut aliorum bonum meum iudicem, utique eorum, quibus ipse sum boni causa. Est istud laudantium bonum, virtute enim geritur; omnis autem virtutis actio bonum est. Hoc contingere illis non potuisset, nisi ego talis essem. Itaque utriusque bonum est merito laudari, tam mehercules quam bene iudicasse iudicantis bonum est et eius, secundum quem iudicatum est. Numquid dubitas, quin iustitia et habentis bonum sit et autem sit eius, cui debitum solvit? Merentem laudare iustitia est; ergo utriusque bonum est. Cavillatoribus istis abunde responderimus. Sed non debet hoc nobis esse propositum arguta disserere et philosophiam in has angustias ex sua maiestate detrahere; quanto satius est ire aperta via et recta quam sibi ipsum flexus disponere, quos cum magna molestia debeas relegere? Neque enim quicquam aliud istae disputationes sunt quam inter se perite captantium lusus. Dic potius, quam naturale sit in inmensum mentem suam extendere. Magna et generosa res est humanus animus: nullos sibi poni nisi communes et cum deo terminos patitur. Primum humilem non accipit patriam, Ephesum aut Alexandriam aut si quod est etiamnunc frequentius accolis laetiusve tectis solum; patria est illi quodcumque suprema et universa circuitu suo cingit, hoc omne convexum, intra quod iacent maria cum terris, intra quod aer humanis divina secernens etiam coniungit, in quo disposita tot lumina in actus suos excubant. Deinde artam aetatem sibi dari non sinit: omnes, inquit, anni mei sunt. Nullum saeculum magnis ingeniis clusum est, nullum non cogitationi pervium tempus. Cum venerit dies ille, qui mixtum hoc divini humanique secernat, corpus hic, ubi inveni, relinquam, ipse me dis reddam. Nec nunc sine illis sum, sed gravi terrenoque detineor. Per has mortalis aevi moras illi meliori vitae longiorique proluditur. Quemadmodum decem mensibus tenet nos maternus uterus et praeparat non sibi, sed illi loco, in quem videmur emitti iam idonei spiritum trahere et in aperto durare; sic per hoc spatium, quod ab infantia patet in senectutem, in alium maturescimus partum. Alia origo nos expectat, alius rerum status. Nondum caelum nisi ex intervallo pati possumus; proinde intrepidus horam illam decretoriam prospice: non est animo suprema, sed corpori. Quidquid circa, te iacet rerum, tamquam hospitalis loci sarcinas specta: transeundum est. Excutit redeuntem natura sicut intrantem. Non licet plus efferre quam intuleris, immo etiam ex eo, quod ad vitam adtulisti, pars magna ponenda est: detrahetur tibi haec circumiecta, novissimum velamentum tui, cutis; detrahetur caro et suffusus sanguis discurrensque per totum; detrahentur ossa nervique, firmamenta fluidorum ac labentium. Dies iste, quem tamquam extremum reformidas, aeterni natalis est. Depone onus; quid cunctaris, tamquam non prius quoque relicto, in quo latebas, corpore exieris? Haeres, reluctaris; tum quoque magno nisu matris expulsus es. Gemis, ploras; et hoc ipsum flere nascentis est, sed tunc debebat ignosci: rudis et imperitus omnium veneras. Ex maternorum viscerum calido mollique fomento emissum adflavit aura liberior, deinde offendit durae manus tactus, tenerque adhuc et nullius rei gnarus obstipuisti inter ignota. Nunc tibi non est novum separari ab eo, cuius ante pars fueris; aequo animo membra iam supervacua dimitte et istuc corpus inhabitatum diu pone. Scindetur, obruetur, abolebitur. Quid contristaris? Ita solet fieri: pereunt semper velamenta nascentem. Quid ista sic diligis quasi tua? Istis opertus es. veniet, qui te revellat dies et ex contubernio foedi atque olidi ventris educat. Huic nunc quoque tu, quantum potes, subdue subduc te voluptatique, nisi quae necessariis seriisque cohaerebit; alienus iam hinc altius ab quid sublimiusque meditare. Aliquando naturae tibi arcana retegentur, discutietur ista caligo et lux undique clara percutiet. Imaginare tecum, quantus ille sit fulgor tot sideribus inter se lumen miscentibus; nulla serenum umbra turbabit. Aequaliter splendebit omne caeli latus; dies et nox aeris infimi vices sunt. Tunc in tenebris vixisse te dices, cum totam lucem et totus aspexeris, quam nunc per angustissimas oculorum vias obscure intuens. Et tamen admirans illam iam procul; quid tibi videbitur divina lux, cum illam suo loco videris? Haec cogitatio nihil sordidum animo subsidere sinit, nihil humile, nihil crudele. Deos rerum omnium esse testes ait. Illis nos adprobari, illis in futurum parari iubet et aeternitatem proponere. Quam qui mente concepit, nullos horret exercitus, non ferretur tuba, nullis ad timorem minis agitur. Multa viri virtus animo multusque recursat Gentis honos. Quid ista circumspicis, quae tibi possunt fortasse evenire, sed possunt et non evenire? Incendium dico, ruinam, alia, quae nobis incidunt, non insidiantur; illa potius vide, illa devita, quae nos observant, quae captant. Rariores sunt casus, etiam si graves, naufragium facere, vehiculo everti; ab homine homini cotidianum periculum. Adversus hoc te expedi, hoc intentis oculis intuere. Nullum est malum frequentius, nullum pertinacius, nullum blandius. Ac tempestas minatur antequam surgat, crepant aedificia antequam corruant, praenuntiat fumus incendium; subita est ex homine pernicies et eo diligentius tegitur, quo propius accedit. Erras, si istorum tibi qui occurrunt vultibus credis; hominum effigies habent, animos ferarum, nisi quod illarum perniciosus est primus incursus; quos transiere, non quaerunt. Numquam enim illas ad nocendum nisi necessitas incitat; aut fame aut timore coguntur ad pugnam; homini perdere hominem libet. Tu tamen ita cogita, quod ex homine periculum sit, ut cogites, quod sit hominis officium. Alterum intuere, ne laedaris, alterum ne laedas. Commodis omnium laeteris, movearis incommodis et memineris, quae praestare debeas, quae cavere. Sic vivendo quid consequaris? Non te ne noceant, sed ne fallant. Quantum potes autem, in philosophiam recede: illa te sinu suo proteget, in huius sacrario eris aut tutus aut tutior. Non arietant inter se nisi in eadem ambulantes via. Ipsam autem philosophiam non debebis iactare; multis fuit periculi causa insolenter tractata et contumaciter. Tibi vitia detrahat, non aliis exprobret. Non abhorreat a publicis moribus nec hoc agat, ut quicquid non facit, damnare videatur. Licet sapere sine pompa, sine invidia. Vale. In Nomentanum meum fugi, quid putas? Urbem? Immo febrem et quidem subrepentem. Iam manum mihi iniecerat. Medicus initia esse dicebat motis venis et incertis et naturalem turbantibus modum. Protinus itaque parari vehiculum iussi; Paulina mea retinente exire perseveravi; illud mihi ore erat domini mei Gallionis, qui cum in Achaia febrem habere coepisset, protinus navem ascendit clamitans non corporis esse, sed loci morbum. Hoc ego Paulinae meae dixi, quae mihi valitudinem meam commendat. Nam cum sciam spiritum illius in meo verti, incipio, ut illi consulam, mihi consulere. Et cum me fortiorem senectus ad multa reddiderit, hoc beneficium aetatis amitto, venit enim mihi in mentem, in hoc sene et adulescentem esse, cui parcitur. Itaque quoniam ego ab illa non impetro, ut me fortius amet, a me impetrat illa, ut me diligentius amem. Indulgendum est enim honestis adfectibus; et interdum, etiam si premunt causae, spiritus in honorem suorum vel cum tormento revocandus et in ipso ore retinendus est, cum bono viro vivendum sit non quamdiu iuvat sed quamdiu oportet. Ille, qui non uxorem, non amicum tanti putat, ut diutius in vita commoretur, qui perseverabit mori, delicatus est. Hoc quoque imperet sibi animus, ubi utilitas suorum exigit, nec tantum, si vult mori, sed si coepit, intermittat et suis se commodet. Ingentis animi est aliena causa ad vitam reverti, quod magni viri saepe fecerunt. Sed hoc quoque summae humanitatis existimo, senectutem suam, cuius maximus fructus est securior sui tutela et vitae usus animosior, attentius custodire, si scias alicui tuorum esse dulce, utile, optabile. Habet praeterea in se non mediocre ista res gaudium et mercedem; quid enim iucundius quam uxori tam carum esse, ut propter hoc tibi carior fias? Potest itaque Paulina mea non tantum suum mihi timorem inputare, sed etiam meum. Quaeris ergo, quomodo mihi consilium profectionis cesserit? Ut primum gravitatem urbis excessi et illum odorem culinarum fumantium, quae motae quicquid pestiferi vaporis obferunt, cum pulvere effundunt, protinus mutatam valitudinem sensi. Quantum deinde adiectum putas viribus, postquam vineas attigi? In pascuum emissus cibum meum invasi. Repeti vi ergo iam me; non permansit marcor ille corporis dubii et male cogitantis. Incipio toto animo studere. Non multum ad hoc locus confert, nisi se sibi praestat animus, qui secretum in occupationibus mediis, si volet, habebit; at ille, qui regiones eligit et otium captat, ubique, quo distringatur, inveniet. Nam Socraten querenti cuidam, quod nihil sibi peregrinationes profuissent, respondisse ferunt: non inmerito hoc tibi evenit; tecum enim peregrinabaris. O quam bene cum quibusdam ageretur, si a se aberrarent! Nunc premunt se ipsi, sollicitant, corrumpunt, territant. Quid prodest mare traicere et urbes mutare? Si vis ista, quibus urgueris, effugere, non aliubi sis oportet, sed alius. Puta venisse te Athenas, puta Rhodon; elige arbitrio tuo civitatem: quid ad rem pertinet, quos illa mores habeat? Tuos adferes. Divitias iudicabis bonum: torquebit te paupertas, quod est miserrimum, falsa. Quamvis enim multum possideas, tamen, quia aliquis plus habet, tanto tibi videris defici, quanto vinceris. Honores iudicabis bonum: male te habebit ille consul factus, ille etiam refectus, invidebis, quotiens aliquem in fastis saepius legeris. Tantus erit ambitionis furor, ut nemo tibi post te videatur, si aliquis ante te fuerit. evasisse tot urbes Argolicas mediosque fugam tenuisse per hostis? Gravissimum iudicabis malum, aliquem ex his, quos amabis, amittere, cum interim hoc tam ineptum erit quam flere, quod arboribus amoenis et domum tuam ornantibus decidant folia. Quicquid te delectat, aeque vide ut flores virides; dum virent, utere;2 alium alio die casus excutiet. Sed quemadmodum frondium iactura facilis est, quia renascuntur, sic istorum, quos amas quosque oblectamenta vitae putas esse, damnum, quia reparantur, etiam si non renascuntur. Sed non erunt idem. Ne tu quidem idem eris. Omnis dies, omnis hora te mutat; sed in aliis rapina facilius apparet, hic latet, quia non ex aperto fiet. Alii auferuntur, at ipsi nobis furto subducimur. Horum nihil cogitabis nec remedia vulneribus oppones, sed ipse tibi seres sollicitudinum causas aha sperando, alia desperando. Si sapis, alterum alteri misce: nec speraveris sine desperatione nec desperaveris sine spe. Quid per se peregrinatio prodesse cuiquam potuit? Non voluptates illa temperavit, non cupiditates refrenavit, non iras repressit, non indomitos amoris impetus fregit, nulla denique animo mala eduxit. Non iudicium dedit, non discussit errorem, sed ut puerum ignota mirantem ad breve tempus rerum aliqua novitate detinuit. Ceterum inconstantia mentis, quae maxime aegra est, lacessit, mobiliorem levioremque reddit ipsa iactatio. Itaque, quae petierant cupidissime loca, cupidius deserunt et avium modo transvolant citiusque quam venerant, abeunt. Peregrinatio notitiam dabit gentium, novas tibi montium formas ostendet, invisitata spatia camporum et inriguas perennibus aquis valles, alicuius fluminis sub observatione naturam, sive ut Nilus aestivo incremento tumet, sive ut Tigris eripitur ex oculis et acto per occulta cursu integrae magnitudini redditur, sive ut Maeander, poetarum omnium exercitati et ludus, implicatur crebris anfractibus et saepe in vicinum alveo suo admotus, antequam sibi influat, flectitur; ceterum neque meliorem faciet neque saniorem. Inter studia versandum est et inter auctores sapientiae, ut quaesita discamus, nondum inventa quaeramus; sic eximendus animus ex miserrima servitute in libertatem adseritur. Quamdiu quidem nesciens, quid fugiendum quid petendum, quid necessarium quid supervacuum, quid iustum quid iniustum sit, non erit hoc peregrinari, sed errare. Nullam tibi opem feret iste discursus, peregrinaris enim cum adfectibus tuis et mala te tua sequuntur. Utinam quidem sequerentur. Longius abessent; nunc fers illa, non ducis. Itaque ubique te premunt et paribus incommodis urunt. Medicina aegro, non regio, quaerenda est. Fregit aliquis crus aut extorsit articulum: non vehiculum navemque conscendit, sed advocat medicum, ut fracta pars iungatur, ut luxata in locum reponatur. Quid ergo? Animum tot locis fractum et extortum credis locorum mutatione posse sanari? Maius est istud malum, quam ut gestatione curetur. Peregrinatio non facit medicum, non oratorem, nulla ars loco discitur. Quid ergo? Sapientia, ars omnium maxima, in itinere colligitur? Nullum est, mihi crede, iter, quod te extra cupiditates, extra iras, extra metus sistat; aut si quod esset, agmine facto gens illuc humana pergeret. Tamdiu ista urguebunt mala macerabuntque per terras ac maria vagum, quamdiu malorum gestaveris causas. Fugam tibi non prodesse miraris? Tecum sunt, quae fugis. Te igitur emenda, onera tibi detrahe et demenda desideria intra salutarem modum contine. Omnem ex animo erade nequitiam. Si vis peregrinationes habere iucundas, comitem tuum sana. Haerebit tibi avaritia, quamdiu avaro sordidoque convixeris; haerebit tumor, quamdiu superbo conversaberis. Numquam saevitiam in tortoris contubernio pones. Incendent libidines tuas adulterorum sodalicia. Si velis vitiis exui, longe a vitiorum exemplis recedendum est. Avarus, corruptor, saevus, fraudulentus, multum nocituri, si prope a te fuissent, intra te sunt. Ad meliores transi: cum Catonibus vive, cum Laelio, cum Tuberone. Quod si convivere etiam Graecis iuvat, cum Socrate, cum Zenone versare; alter te docebit mori, si necesse erit, alter, antequam necesse erit. vive cum Chrysippo, cum Posidonio: hi tibi tradent humanorum divinorumque notitiam, hi iubebunt in opere esse nec tantum scite loqui et in oblectationem audientium verba iactare, sed animum indurare et adversus minas erigere. Unus est enim huius vitae fluctuantis et turbidae portus eventura contemnere, stare fidenter ac paratum tela fortunae adverso pectore excipere, non latitantem nec tergiversantem. Magnanimos nos natura produxit et ut quibusdam animalibus ferum dedit, quibusdam subdolum, quibusdam pavidum, ita nobis gloriosum et excelsum spiritum, quaerentem ubi honestissime, non ubi tutissime vivat, simillimum mundo, quem quantum mortalium passibus licet, sequitur aemulaturque. Profert se, laudari et aspici credit. Dominus omnium est, supra omnia est; Terribiles visu formae letumque labosque; Quid est, obsecro te, Lucili, cur timeat laborem vir, mortem homo? Totiens mihi occurrunt isti, qui non putant fieri posse quicquid facere non possunt, et aiunt nos loqui maiora quam quae humana natura sustineat. At quanto ego de illis melius existimo! Ipsi quoque haec possunt facere, sed nolunt. Denique quem umquam ista destituere temptantem? Cui non faciliora apparuere in actu? Non quia difficilia sunt, non audemus, sed quia non audemus, difficilia sunt. Si tamen exemplum desideratis, accipite Socraten, perpessicium senem, per omnia aspera iactatum, invictum tamen et paupertate, quam graviorem illi domestica onera faciebant, et laboribus, quos militares quoque pertulit. Quibus ille domi exercitus est, sive uxorem eius reminiscimur moribus feram, lingua petulantem, sive liberos indociles et matri quam patri similiores. Si vere reputes, aut in bello fuit aut in tyrannide aut in libertate bellis ac tyrannis saeviore. viginti et septem annis pugnatum est; post finita arma triginta tyrannis noxae dedita est civitas, ex quibus plerique inimici erant. Novissima damnatio est sub gravissimis nominibus impleta: obiecta est et religionum violatio et iuventutis corruptela, quam inmittere in deos, in patres, in rem publicam dictus est. Post haec carcer et venenum. Haec usque eo animum Socratis non moverant, ut ne vultum quidem moverent. O illam mirabilem laudem et singularem! Usque ad extremum nec hilariorem quisquam nec tristiorem Socraten vidit. Aequalis fuit in tanta inaequalitate fortunae. Vis alterum exemplum? Accipe hunc M. Catonem recentiorem, cum quo et infestius fortuna egit et pertinacius. Cui cum omnibus locis obstitisset, novissime et in morte, ostendit tamen virum fortem posse invita fortuna vivere, invita mori. Tota illi aetas aut in armis est exacta civilibus aut in toga concipiente iam civile bellum. Et hunc licet dicas non minus quam Socraten in servis se libertati addixisse, nisi forte Cn. Pompeium et Caesarem et Crassum putas libertatis socios fuisse. Nemo mutatum Catonem totiens mutata re publica vidit: eundem se in omni statu praestitit, in praetura, in repulsa, in accusatione, in provincia, in contione, in exercitu, in morte. Denique in illa rei publicae trepidatione, cum illinc Caesar esset decem legionibus pugnacissimis subnixus, totis exterarum gentium praesidiis, hinc Cn. Pompeius, satis unus adversus omnia, cum alii ad Caesarem inclinarent, alii ad Pompeium, solus Cato fecit aliquas et rei publicae partes. Atriden Priamumque et saevom ambobus Achillen. Utrumque enim improbat, utrumque exarmat. Hanc fert de utroque sententiam: ait se, si Caesar vicerit, moriturum, si Pompeius, exulaturum. Quid habebat, quod timeret, qui ipse sibi et victo et victori constituerat, quae constituta esse ab hostibus iratissimis poterant? Periit itaque ex decreto suo. vides posse homines laborem pati: per medias Africae solitudines pedes duxit exercitum, vides posse tolerari sitim: in collibus arentibus sine ullis inpedimcntis inpedimentis victi exercitus reliquias trahens inopiam umoris loricatus tulit et, quotiens aquae fuerat occasio, novissimus bibit, vides honorem et notam posse contemni: eodem quo repulsus est die in comitio pila lusit, vides posse non timeri potentiam superiorum: et Pompeium et Caesarem, quorum nemo alterum offendere audebat nisi ut alterum demereretur, simul provocavit, vides tam mortem posse contemni quam exilium: et exilium sibi indixit et mortem et interim bellum. Possumus itaque adversus ista tantum habere animi, libeat modo subducere iugo collum. In primis autem respuendae voluptates; enervant et effeminant et multum petunt, multum autem a fortuna petendum est. Deinde spernendae opes: auctoramenta sunt servitutum. Aurum et argentum et quicquid aliud felices domos onerat, relinquatur; non potest gratis constare libertas. Hanc si magno aestimas, omnia parvo aestimanda sunt. Vale. Quae observanda tibi sint, ut tutior vivas, dicam. Tu tamen sic audias censeo ista praecepta, quomodo si tibi praeciperem, qua ratione bonam valitudinem in Ardeatino tuereris. Considera, quae sint, quae hominem in perniciem hominis instigent: invenies spem, invidiam, odium, metum, contemptum. Ex omnibus istis adeo levissimum est contemptus, ut multi in illo remedii causa delituerint. Quem quis contemnit, violat sine dubio, sed transit; nemo homini contempto pertinaciter, nemo diligenter nocet. Etiam in acie iacens praeteritur, cum stante pugnatur. Spem inproborum vitabis, si nihil habueris, quod cupiditatem alienam et inprobam inritet, si nihil insigne possederis. Concupiscuntur enim etiam parva, si notabilia sunt, si rara. Invidiam effugies, si te non ingesseris oculis, si bona tua non iacta veris, si scicris scieris in sinu gaudere. Odium aut est ex offensa: hoc vitabis neminem lacessendo; aut gratuitum: a quo te sensus communis tuebitur. Fuit hoc multis periculosum; quidam odium habuerunt nec inimicum. Illud, ne timearis, praestabit tibi et fortunae mediocritas et ingenii lenitas; eum esse te homines sciant, quem offendere sine periculo possint; reconciliatio tua et facilis sit et certa. Timeri autem tam domi molestum est quam foris, tam a servis quam a liberis. Nulli non ad nocendum satis virium est. Adice nunc, quod qui timetur, timet; nemo potuit terribilis esse secure. Contemptus superest, cuius modum in sua potestate habet, qui illum sibi adiunxit, qui contemnitur quia voluit, non quia debuit. Huius incommodum et artes bonae discutiunt et amicitiae eorum, qui apud aliquem potentem potentes sunt, quibus adplicari expediet, non inplicari, ne pluris remedium quam periculum constet. Nihil tamen aeque proderit quam quiescere et minimum cum aliis loqui, plurimum secum. Est quaedam dulcedo sermonis, quae inrepit et eblanditur et non aliter quam ebrietas aut amor secreta producit. Nemo quod audierit, tacebit. Nemo quantum audierit, loquetur. Qui rem non tacuerit, non tacebit auctorem. Habet unusquisque aliquem, cui tantum credat, quantum ipsi creditum est. Ut garrulitatem suam custodiat et contentus sit unius auribus, populum faciet, si quod modo secretum erat, rumor est. Securitatis magna portio est nihil inique facere. Confusam vitam et perturbatam inpotentes agunt; tantum metuunt, quantum nocent, nec ullo tempore vacant. Trepidant enim, cum fecerunt, haerent; conscientia aliud agere non patitur ac subinde respondere ad se cogit. Dat poenas quisquis expectat; quisquis autem meruit, expectat. Tutum aliqua res in mala conscientia praestat, nulla securum; putat enim se, etiam si non deprenditur, posse deprendi. Et inter somnos movetur et, quotiens alicuius scelus loquitur, de suo cogitat; non satis illi obliteratum videtur, non satis tectum. Nocens habuit aliquando latendi fortunam, numquam fiduciam. Vale. Tardius rescribo ad epistulas tuas, non quia districtus occupationibus sum. Hanc excusationem cave audias; vaco et omnes vacant, qui volunt. Neminem res secuntur. Ipsi illas amplexantur et argumentum esse felicitatis occupationem putant. Quid ergo fuit, quare non protinus rescriberem? Id, de quo quaerebas, veniebat in contextum operis mei. Scis enim me moralem philosophiam velle conplecti et omnes ad eam pertinentis quaestiones explicare. Itaque dubitavi utrum differrem te, donec suus isti rei veniret locus, an ius tibi extra ordinem dicerem; humanius visum est tam longe venientem non detinere. Itaque et hoc ex illa serie rerum cohaerentium excerpam et, si qua erunt eiusmodi, non quaerenti tibi ultro mittam. Quae sint haec interrogas? Quae scire magis iuvat quam prodest, sicut hoc, de quo quaeris: bonum an corpus sit? Bonum facit: prodest enim. Quod facit, corpus est. Bonum agitat animum et quodammodo format et continet, quae propria sunt corporis. Quae corporis bona sunt, corpora sunt; ergo et quae animi sunt. Nam et hoc corpus est. Bonum hominis necesse est corpus sit, cum ipse sit corporalis. Mentior, nisi et quae aiunt illum et quae valitudinem eius vel custodiunt vel restituunt, corpora sunt; ergo et bonum eius corpus est. Non puto te dubitaturum, an adfectus corpora sint—ut aliud quoque, de quo non quaeris, infulciam—tamquam ira, amor, tristitia,nisi dubitas, an vultum nobis mutent, an frontem adstringant, an faciem diffundant, an ruborem evocent, an fugent sanguinem. Quid ergo? Tam manifestas notas corporis credis inprimi nisi a corpore? Si adfectus corpora sunt, et morbi animorum, ut avaritia, crudelitas, indurata vitia et in statum inemendabilem adducta; ergo et malitia et species eius omnes, malignitas, invidia, superbia; ergo et bona, primum quia contraria istis sunt, deinde quia eadem tibi indicia praestabunt. An non vides, quantum oculis det vigorem fortitudo? Quantam intentionem prudentia? Quantam modestiam et quietem reverentia? Quantam serenitatem laetitia? Quantum rigorem severitas? Quantam remissionem lenitas? Corpora ergo sunt, quae colorem habitumque corporum mutant, quae in illis regnum suum exercent. Omnes autem, quas rettuli, virtutes bona sunt, et quicquid ex illis est. Numquid est dubium, an id, quo quid tangi potest, corpus sit? Tangere enim et tangi nisi corpus nulla potest res, Etiam nunc cui tanta vis est, ut inpellat et cogat et retineat et inhibeat, corpus est. Quid ergo? Non timor retinet? Non audacia inpellit? Non fortitudo inmittit et impetum dat? Non moderatio refrcnat refrenat ac revocat? Non gaudium extollit? Non tristitia adducit? Denique quidquid facimus, aut, malitiae aut virtutis gerimus imperio. Quod imperat corpori, corpus est, quod vim corpori adfert, corpus. Bonum corporis corporalest, bonum hominis et corporis bonum est; itaque corporale est. Quoniam, ut voluisti, morem gessi tibi, nunc ipse dicam mihi, quod dicturum esse te video: latrunculis ludimus. In supervacuis subtilitas teritur; non faciunt bonos ista, sed doctos. Apertior res est sapere, immo simpliciter satius est ad mentem bonam uti litteris, sed nos ut cetera in supervacuum diffundimus, ita philosophiam ipsam. Quemadmodum omnium rerum, sic litterarum quoque intemperantia laboramus; non vitae sed scholae discimus. Vale. Ubi illa prudentia tua? Ubi in dispiciendis rebus subtilitas? Ubi magnitudo? Iam pusilla te res angit? Servi occupationes tuas occasionem fugae putaverunt. Si amici deciperent—habeant enim sane nomen, quod illis noster error inposuit, et vocentur, quo turpius non sint—omnibus rebus tuis desset aliquid; nunc desunt illi, qui et operam tuam conterebant et te aliis molestum esse credebant. Nihil horum insolitum, nihil inexpectatum est. Offendi rebus istis tam ridiculum est quam queri, quod spargaris in publico aut inquineris in luto. Eadem vitae condicio est, quae balnei, turbae, itineris: quaedam in te mittentur, quaedam incident. Non est delicata res vivere. Longam viam ingressus es; et labaris oportet et arietes et cadas et lasseris et exclames: O mors! id est mentiaris. Alio loco comitem relinques, alio efferes, alio timebis; per eiusmodi offensas emetiendum est confragosum hoc iter. Luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia curae Pallentesque habitant morbi tristisque senectus. Nemo non fortius ad id, cui se diu conposuerat, accessit et duris quoque, si praemeditata erant, obstitit. At contra inparatus etiam levissima expavit. Id agendum est, ne quid nobis inopinatum sit. Et quia omnia novitate graviora sunt, hoc cogitatio adsidua praestabit, ut nulli sis malo tiro. Servi me reliquerunt. Alium compilaverunt, alium accusaverunt, alium occiderunt, alium prodiderunt, alium calcaverunt, alium veneno, alium criminatione petierunt; quicquid dixeris, multis accidit. Deinceps quae multa et varia sunt, in nos tela deriguntur. Quaedam in nos fixa sunt, quaedam vibrant et cum maxime veniunt, quaedam in alios perventura nos stringunt. Nihil miremur eorum, ad quae nati sumus, quae ideo nulli querenda, quia paria sunt omnibus. Ita dico, paria sunt; nam etiam quod effugit aliquis, pati potuit. Aequum autem ius est non quo omnes usi sunt, sed quod omnibus latum est. Imperetur aequitas animo et sine querella mortalitatis tributa pendamus. Hiems frigora adducit: algendum est. Aestas calores refert: aestuandum est. Intemperies caeli valitudinem temptat: aegrotandum est. Et fera nobis aliquo loco occurret et homo perniciosior feris omnibus. Aliud aqua, aliud ignis eripiet. Hanc rerum condicionem mutare non possumus; illud possumus, magnum sumere animum et viro bono dignum, quo fortiter fortuita patiamur et naturae consentiamus. Natura autem hoc, quod vides, regnum mutationibus temperat; nubilo serena succedunt; turbantur maria, cum quieverunt; fiant in vicem venti; noctem dies sequitur; pars caeli consurgit, pars mergitur. Contrariis rerum aeternitas constat. Ad hanc legem animus noster aptandus est; hanc sequatur, huic pareat. Et quaecumque fiunt, debuisse fieri putet nec velit obiurgare naturam. Optimum est pati, quod emendare non possis, et deum, quo auctore cuncta proveniunt, sine murmuratione comitari; malus miles est qui imperatorem gemens sequitur. Quare inpigri atque alacres excipiamus imperia nec deseramus hunc operis pulcherrimi cursum, cui quidquid patiemur, intextum est. Et sic adloquamur Iovem, cuius gubernaculo moles ista derigitur, quemadmodum Cleanthes noster versibus disertissimis adloquitur, quos mihi in nostrum sermonem mutare permittitur Ciceronis, disertissimi viri, exemplo. Si placuerint, boni consules; si displicuerint, scies me in hoc secutum Ciceronis exemplum: Duc, o parens celsique dominator poli, Quocumque placuit; nulla parendi mora est. Adsum inpiger. Fac nolle, comitabor gemens Maiusque patiar, facere quod licuit bono. Ducunt volentem fata, nolentem trahunt. Sic vivamus, sic loquamur; paratos nos inveniat atque inpigros fatum. Hic est magnus animus, qui se ei tradidit; at contra ille pusillus et degener, qui obluctatur et de ordine mundi male existimat et emendare mavult deos quam se. Vale. Id, de quo quaeris, ex his est, quae scire tantum eo, ut scias, pertinet. Sed nihilominus, quia pertinet, properas nec vis exspectare libros, quos cum maxime ordino continentes totam moralem philosophiae partem. Statim expediam, illud tamen prius scribam, quemadmodum tibi ista cupiditas discendi, qua flagrare te video, digerenda sit, ne ipsa se inpediat. Nec passim carpenda sunt nec avide invadenda universa; per partes pervenietur ad totum. Aptari onus viribus debet nec plus occupari quam cui sufficere possimus. Non quantum vis, sed quantum capis, hauriendum est. Bonum tantum habe animum; capies quantum voles. Quo plus recipit animus, hoc se magis laxat. Haec nobis praecipere Attalum memini, cum scholam eius opsideremus et primi veniremus et novissimi exiremus, ambulantem quoque illum ad aliquas disputationes evocaremus, non tantum paratum discentibus, sed obvium. Idem, inquit, et docenti et discenti debet esse propositum: ut ille prodesse velit, hic proficere. Qui ad philosophum venit, cotidie aliquid secum boni ferat: aut sanior domum redeat aut sanabilior. Redibit autem; ea philosophiae vis est, ut non studentes, sed etiam conversantes iuvet. Qui in solem venit, licet non in hoc venerit, colorabitur; qui in unguentaria taberna resederunt et paullo diutius commorati sunt, odorem secum loci ferunt. Et qui ad philosophum fuerunt, traxerint aliquid necesse est, quod prodesset etiam neglegentibus. Attende, quid dicam: neglegentibus, non repugnantibus. Quid ergo? Non novimus quosdam, qui multis apud philosophum annis persederint et ne colorem quidem duxerint? Quidni noverim? Pertinacissimos quidem et adsiduos, quos ego non discipulos philosophorum, sed inquilinos voco. Quidam veniunt ut audiant, non ut discant, sicut in theatrum voluptatis causa ad delectandas aures oratione vel voce vel fabulis ducimur. Magnam hanc auditorum partem videbis, cui philosophi schola deversorium otii sit. Non id agunt, ut aliqua illo vitia deponant, ut aliquam legem vitae accipiant, qua mores suos exigant, sed ut oblectamento aurium perfruantur. Aliqui tamen et cum pugillaribus veniunt, non ut res excipiant, sed ut verba, quae tam sine profectu alieno dicant quam sine suo audiunt. Quidam ad magnificas voces excitantur et transeunt in adfectum dicentium alacres vultu et animo, nec aliter concitantur quam solent Phrygii tibicinis sono semiviri et ex imperio furentes. Rapit illos instigatque rerum pulchritudo, non verborum inanium sonitus. Si quid acriter contra mortem dictum est, si quid contra fortunam contumaciter, iuvat protinus quae audias, facere. Adficiuntur illis et sunt quales iubentur, si illa animo forma permaneat, si non impetum insignem protinus populus, honesti dissuasor, excipiat; pauci illam, quam conceperant mentem, domum perferre pofuerunt potuerunt. Facile est auditorem concitare ad cupidinem recti; omnibus enim natura fundamenta dedit semenque virtutum. Omnes ad omnia ista nati sumus; cum inritator accessit, tunc illa anima bona veluti soluta excitatur. Non vides, quemadmodum theatra consonent, quotiens aliqua dicta sunt, quae publice adgnoscimus et consensu vera esse testamur? Desunt inopiae multa, avaritiae omnia. In nullum avarus bonus est, in se pessimus. Nam, ut dicebat Cleanthes, quemadmodum spiritus noster clariorem sonum reddit, cum illum tuba per longi canalis angustias tractum patentiore novissime exitu effudit, sic sensus nostros clariores carminis arta necessitas efficit. Eadem neglcgentius neglegentius audiuntur minusque percutiunt, quamdiu soluta oratione dicuntur; ubi accessere numeri et egregium sensum adstrinxere certi pedes, eadem illa sententia velut lacerto excussiore torquetur. Is minimo eget mortalis, qui minimum cupit. Quod vult habet, qui velle quod satis est potest. Cum haec atque eiusmodi audimus, ad confessionem veritatis adducimur. Illi enim, quibus nihil satis est, admirantur, adclamant, odium pecuniae indicunt. Hunc illorum adfectum cum videris, urge, hoc preme, hoc onera relictis ambiguitatibus et syllogismis et cavillationibus et ceteris acuminis inriti ludicris. Dic in avaritiam, dic in luxuriam; cum profecisse te videris et animos audientium adfeceris, insta vehementius; veri simile non^est, quantum proficiat talis oratio remedio intenta et tota in bonum audientium versa. Facillime enim tenera conciliantur ingenia ad honesti rectique amorem et adhuc docibilibus leviterque corruptis inicit manum veritas, si advocatum idoneum nancta est. Ego certe cum Attalum audirem in vitia, in errores, in mala vitae perorantem, saepe miseritus sum generis humani et illum sublimem altioremque humano fastigio credidi. Ipse regem se esse dicebat, sed plus quam regnare mihi videbatur, cui liceret censuram agere regnantium. Cum vero commendare paupertatem coeperat et ostendere, quam quidquid usum excederet, pondus esset supervacuum et grave ferenti, saepe exire e schola pauperi libuit. Cum coeperat voluptates nostras traducere, laudare castum corpus, sobriam mensam, puram mentem non tantum ab inlicitis voluptatibus, sed etiam supervacuis, libebat circumscribere gulam ac ventrem. Inde mihi quaedam permansere, Lucili. Magno enim in omnia inceptu veneram. Deinde ad civitatis vitam reductus ex bene coeptis pauca servavi. Inde ostreis boletisque in omnem vitam renuntiatum est; nec enim cibi, sed oblectamenta sunt ad edendum saturos cogentia, quod gratissimum est edacibus et se ultra quam capiunt farcientibus, facile descensura, facile reditura. Inde in omnem vitam unguento abstinemus, quoniam optimus odor in corpore est nullus. Inde vino carens stomachus. Inde in omnem vitam balneum fugimus, decoquere corpus atque exinanire sudoribus inutile simul delicatumque credidimus. Cetera proiecta redierunt, ita tamen, ut quorum abstinentiam interrupi, modum servem et quidem abstinentiae proximiorem, nescio an difficiliorem, quoniam quaedam absciduntur facilius animo quam temperantur. Quoniam coepi tibi exponere, quanto maiore impetu ad philosophiam iuvenis accesserim quam senex pergam, non pudebit fateri, quem mihi amorem Pythagoras iniecerit. Sotion dicebat, quare ille animalibus abstinuisset, quare postea Sextius. Dissimilis utrique causa erat, sed utrique magnifica. Hic homini satis alimentorum citra sanguinem esse credebat et crudelitatis consuetudinem fieri, ubi in voluptatem esset adducta laceratio. Adiciebat contrahendam materiam esse luxuriae; colligebat bonae valitudini contraria esse alimenta varia et nostris aliena corporibus. At Pythagoras omnium inter omnia cognationem esse dicebat et animorum commercium in alias atque alias formas transeuntium. Nulla, si illi credas, anima interit, ne cessat quidem nisi tempore exiguo, dum in aliud corpus transfunditur. videbimus, per quas temporum vices et quando pererratis pluribus domiciliis in hominem revertatur; interim sceleris hominibus ac parricidii metum fecit, cum possent in parentis animam,inscii incurrere et ferro morsuve violare, si in quo cognatus aliqui spiritus hospitaretur. Haec cum exposuisset Sotion et inplesset argumentis suis, Non credis, inquit, animas in alia corpora atque alia discribi et migrationem esse quod dicimus mortem? Non credis in his pecudibus ferisve aut aqua mersis illum quondam hominis animum morari? Non credis nihil perire in hoc mundo, sed mutare regionem? Nec tantum caelestia per certos circuitus verti, sed animalia quoque per vices ire et animos per orbem agi? Magni ista crediderunt viri. Itaque iudicium quidem tuum sustine, ceterum omnia tibi in integro serva. Si vera sunt ista, abstinuisse animalibus innocentia est; si falsa, frugalitas est. Quod istic credulitatis tuae damnum est? Alimenta tibi leonum et vulturum eripio. His ego instinctus abstinere animalibus coepi, et anno peracto non tantum facilis erat mihi consuetudo, sed dulcis. Agitatiorem mihi animum esse credebam, nec tibi hodie adfirmaverim, an fuerit. Quaeris, quomodo desierim? In primum Tiberii Caesaris principatum iuventae tempus inciderat. Alienigena tum sacra movebantur, sed inter argumenta superstitionis ponebatur quorundam animalium abstinentia. Patre itaque meo rogante, qui non calumniam timebat, sed philosophiam oderat, ad pristinam consuetudinem redii. Nec difficulter mihi, ut inciperem melius cenare, persuasit. Laudare solebat Attalus culcitam, quae resisteret corpori; tali utor etiam senex, in qua vestigium apparere non possit. Haec rettuli ut probarem tibi, quam vehementes haberent tirunculi impetus primos ad optima quaeque, si quis exhortaretur illos, si quis incenderet. Sed aliquid praecipientium vitio peccatur, qui nos docent disputare, non vivere, aliquid discentium, qui propositum adferunt ad praeceptores suos non animum excolendi, sed ingenium. Itaque quae philosophia fuit, facta philologia est. fugit inreparabile tempus: Optima quaeque dies miseris mortalibus aevi Prima fugit; subeunt morbi tristisque senectus Et labor, et durae rapit inclementia mortis. Ille, qui ad philosophiam spectat, haec eadem quo debet, adducit: numquam vergilius, inquit, dies dicit ire, sed fugere, quod currendi genus concitatissimum est, et optimos quosque primos rapi; quid ergo cessamus nos ipsi concitare, ut velocitatem rapidissimae rei possimus aequare? Meliora praetervolant, deteriora succedunt. Optima quaeque dies miseris mortalibus aevi Prima fugit. Quare optima? Quia quod restat, incertum est. Quare optima? Quia iuvenes possumus discere, possumus facilem animum et adhuc tractabilem ad meliora convertere; quia hoc tempus idoneum est laboribus, idoneum agitandis per studia ingeniis et exercendis per opera corporibus; quod superest, segnius et languidius est et propius a fine. Itaque toto hoc agamus animo et omissis, ad quae devertimur, in rem unam laboremus, ne hanc temporis pernicissimi celeritatem, quam retinere non possumus, relicti demum intellegamus. Primus quisque tamquam optimus dies placeat et redigatur in nostrum. Quod fugit, occupandum est. Haec non cogitat ille, qui grammatici oculis carmen istud legit, ideo optimum quemque primum esse diem, quia subeunt morbi, quia senectus premit et adhuc adulescentiam cogitantibus supra caput est; sed ait Vergilium semper una ponere morbos et senectutem, non mehercules immerito. Senectus enim insanabilis morbus est. subeunt morbi tristisque senectus. Pallentesque habitant morbi tristisque senectus. Cum Ciceronis librum de Re Publica prendit hinc philologus aliquis,hinc grammaticus, hinc philosophiae deditus, alius alio curam suam mittit. Philosophus admiratur contra iustitiam dici tam multa potuisse. Cum ad hanc eandem lectionem philologus accessit, hoc subnotat: Duos Romanos reges esse, quorum alter patrem non habet, alter matrem. Nam de Servi matre dubitatur; Anci pater nullus, Numae nepotis, dicitur. Praeterea notat eum, quem nos dictatorem dicimus et in historiis ita nominari legimus, aput antiquos magistrum populi vocatum. Hodieque id extat in auguralibus libris, et testimonium est, quod qui ab illo nominatur, magister equitum est. Aeque notat Romulum perisse solis defectione; provocationem ad populum etiam a regibus fuisse; id ita in pontificalibus libris esse et alii quiqui putant et Fenestella. Eosdem libros cum grammaticus explicuit, primum verba expressa, reapse dici a Cicerone, id est re ipsa, in commentarium refert, nec minus sepse, id est se ipse. Deinde transit ad ea, quae consuetudo saeculi mutavit, tamquam ait Cicero: quoniam sumus ab ipsa calce eius interpellatione revocati. Hanc quam nunc in circo cretam vocamus, calcem antiqui dicebant. cui nemo civis neque hostis Quibit pro factis reddere opis pretium. quem super ingens porta tonat caeli. Si fas endo plagas caelestum ascendere cuiquam est, Mi soli caeli maxima porta patet. Sed ne et ipse, dum aliud ago, in philologum aut grammaticum delabar, illud admoneo, auditionem philosophorum lectionemque ad propositum beatae vitae trahendam, non ut verba prisca aut ficta captemus et translationes inprobas figurasque dicendi, sed ut profutura praecepta et magnificas voces et animosas, quae mox in rem transferantur. Sic ista ediscamus, ut quae fuerint verba, sint opera. Nullos autem peius mereri de omnibus mortalibus iudico quam qui philosophiam velut aliquod artificium venale didicerunt, qui aliter vivunt quam vivendum esse praecipiunt. Exempla enim se ipsos inutilis disciplinae circumferunt nulli non vitio, quod insequuntur, obnoxii. Non magis mihi potest quisquam talis prodesse praeceptor quam gubernator in tempestate nauseabundus. Tenendum rapiente fluctu gubernaculum, luctandum cum ipso mari, eripienda sunt vento vela; quid me potest adiuvare rector navigii attonitus et vomitans? Quanto maiore putas vitam tempestate iactari quam ullam ratem? Non est loquendum, sed gubernandum. Omnia quae dicunt, quae turba audiente iactant, aliena sunt; dixit illa Platon, dixit Zenon, dixit Chrysippus et Posidonius et ingens agmen nostrorum tot ac talium. Quomodo probare possint sua esse, monstrabo: faciant, quae dixerint. Quoniam quae volueram ad te perferre, iam dixi, nunc desiderio tuo satis faciam et in alteram epistulam integrum, quod exegeras, transferam, ne ad rem spinosam et auribus erectis curiosisque audiendam lassus accedas. Vale. An sapiens sapienti prosit scire desideras. Dicimus plenum omni bono esse sapientem et summa adeptum; quomodo prodesse aliqui possit summum habenti bonum, quaeritur. Prosunt inter se boni; exercent enim virtutes et sapientiam in suo statu continent. Desiderat uterque aliquem, cum quo conferat, cum quo quaerat. Peritos luctandi usus exercet; musicum, qui paria didicit, movet. Opus est et sapienti agitatione virtutum: ita quemadmodum ipse se movet, sic movetur ab alio sapiente. Quid sapiens sapienti proderit? Impetum illi dabit, occasiones actionum honestarum commonstrabit. Praeter haec aliquas cogitationes suas exprimet: docebit, quae invenerit. Semper enim etiam a sapiente restabit, quod inveniat et quo animus eius excurrat. Malus malo nocet facitque peiorem, iram eius incitando, tristitiae adsentiendo, voluptates laudando, et tunc maxime laborant mali, ubi plurimum vitia miscuere, et in unum conlata nequitia est. Ergo ex contrario bonus bono proderit. Quomodo? inquis. Gaudium illi adferet, fiduciam confirmabit, ex conspectu mutuae tranquillitatis crescet utriusque laetitia. Praeterea quarumdam illi rerum scientiam tradet; non enim omnia sapiens scit. Etiam si sciret, breviores vias rerum aliqui excogitare posset et has indicare, per quas facilius totum opus circumfertur. Proderit sapienti sapiens, non scilicet tantum suis viribus, sed ipsius, quem adiuvat. Potest quidem ille etiam relictus sibi explicare partes suas; nihilominus adiuvat etiam currentem hortator. Non prodest sapienti sapiens, sed sibi ipse. Hoc scias: detrahe illi vim propriam, et ille nihil aget. Illo modo dicas licet non esse in melle dulcedinem: nam ipse ille, qui esse debeat, ita aptatus lingua palatoque est ad eiusmodi gustum, ut illa talis sapor capiat, aut offendetur. Sunt enim quidam, quibus morbi vitio mel amarum videatur. Oportet utrumque valere, ut et ille prodesse possit et hic profuturo idonea materia sit. Si in summum, inquit, perducto calorem calefieri supervacuum est, et in summum perducto bonum supervacuum est si qui prosit. Numquid instructus omnibus rebus agricola ab alio instrui quaerit? Numquid armatus miles, quantum in aciem exituro satis est tuti, amplius arma desiderat? Ergo nec sapiens; satis enim vitae instructus, satis armatus est. Ad haec respondeo: et qui in summo est calore, opus est calore adiecto, ut summum teneat. Sed ipse se, inquit, calor continet. Primum multum interest inter ista, quae comparas; calor enim unus est, prodesse varium est. Deinde calor non adiuvatur adiectione caloris, ut caleat; sapiens non potest in habitu mentis suae stare, nisi amicos aliquos similes sui admisit, cum quibus virtutes suas communicet. Adice nunc, quod omnibus inter se virtutibus amicitia est. Itaque prodest, qui virtutes alicuius paris sui amat amandasque invicem praestat. Similia delectant; utique ubi honesta sunt et probare ac probari sciunt. Etiamnunc sapientis animum perite movere nemo alius potest quam sapiens, sicut hominem movere rationaliter non potest nisi homo. Quomodo ergo ad rationem movendam ratione opus est, sic ut moveatur ratio perfecta, opus est ratione perfecta. Prodesse dicuntur et qui media nobis largiuntur, pecuniam, gratiam, incolumitatem, alia in usus vitae cara aut necessaria. In his dicetur etiam stultus prodesse sapienti. Prodesse autem est animum secundum naturam movere virtute sua ut eius, qui movebitur. Hoc non sine ipsius quoque, qui proderit, bono fiet. Necesse enim alienam virtutem exercendo exerceat et suam. Sed ut removeas ista, quae aut summa bona sunt aut summorum efficientia, nihilominus prodesse inter se sapientes possunt. Invenire enim sapientem sapienti per se res expetenda est, quia natura bonum omne carum est bono et sic quisque conciliatur bono quemadmodum sibi. Necesse est ex hac quaestione argumenti causa in alteram transeam. Quaeritur enim, an deliberaturus sit sapiens, an in consilium aliquem advocaturus. Quod facere illi necessarium est, cum ad haec civilia et domestica venitur et, ut ita dicam, mortalia. In his sic illi opus est alieno consilio quomodo medico, quomodo gubernatori, quomodo advocato et litis ordinatori. Proderit ergo sapiens aliquando sapienti, suadebit enim. Sed in illis quoque magnis ac divinis, ut diximus, communiter honesta tractando et animos cogitationesque miscendo utilis erit. Praeterea secundum naturam est et amicos complecti et amicorum auctu ut suo proprioque laetari. Nam nisi hoc fecerimus, ne virtus quidem nobis permanebit, quae exercendo sensu valet, virtus autem suadet praesentia bene conlocare, in futurum consulere, deliberare et intendere animum; facilius intendet explicabitque qui aliquem sibi adsumpserit. Quaeret itaque aut perfectum virum aut proficientem vicinumque perfecto. Proderit autem ille perfectus, si consilium communi prudentia iuverit. Aiunt homines plus in alieno negotio videre, vitio hoc illis evenit, quos amor sui excaecat quibusque dispectum utilitatis timor in periculis excutit; incipiet sapere securior et extra metum positus. Sed nihilominus quaedam sunt, quae etiam sapientes in alio quam in se diligentius vident. Praeterea illud dulcissimum et honestissimum idem velle atque idem nolle sapiens sapienti praestabit; egregium opus pari iugo ducet. Persolvi id quod exegeras, quamquam in ordine rerum erat, quas moralis philosophiae voluminibus complectimur. Cogita, quod soleo frequenter tibi dicere, in istis nos nihil aliud quam acumen exercere. Totiens enim illo revertor: quid ista me res iuvat? Fortiorem fac iam, iustiorem, temperantiorem. Nondum exerceri vacat; adhuc medico mihi opus est. Quid me poscis scientiam inutilem? Magna promisisti; exige, vide. Dicebas intrepidum fore, etiam si circa me gladii micarent, etiam si mucro tangeret iugulum; dicebas securum fore, etiam si circa me flagrarent incendia, etiam si subitus turbo toto navem meam mari raperet. Hanc mihi praesta curam, ut voluptatem, ut gloriam contemnam. Postea docebis inplicta solvere, ambigua distinguere, obscura perspicere; nunc doce quod necesse est. Vale.

Every day, every hour shows how nothing we are, and warns us — forgetful of our frailty — by some fresh proof; then, when we have been meditating on the eternal, it compels us to look back to death. You ask what this opening means? You knew Cornelius Senecio, a Roman knight, splendid and dutiful: from a slender beginning he had pushed himself up, and already his course to the rest was downhill.

Omnis dies, omnis hora quam nihil simus ostendit et aliquo argumento recenti admonet fragilitatis oblitos; tum aeterna meditatos respicere cogit ad mortem. Quid sibi istud principium velit quaeris? Senecionem Cornelium, equitem Romanum splendidum et officiosum, noveras: ex tenui principio se ipse promoverat et iam illi declivis erat cursus ad cetera.

For dignity grows more easily than it begins. Money too has the most delay around poverty, sticking fast while it struggles to creep out of it. Already Senecio was on the verge of riches, to which two most effective things were leading him — the knowledge of getting and of keeping, either of which alone could have made him rich.

Facilius enim crescit dignitas quam incipit. Pecunia quoque circa paupertatem plurimum morae habet, dum ex illa erepat haeret. Iam Senecio divitiis imminebat, ad quas illum duae res ducebant efficacissimae, et quaerendi et custodiendi scientia, quarum vel altera locupletem facere potuisset.

This man, of the utmost frugality, careful of his estate no less than of his body, when he had seen me in the morning as usual, when he had sat all day — even into the night — by a friend gravely stricken and lying without hope, when he had dined cheerfully, was seized by a headlong kind of illness, the quinsy, and, his throat narrowed, drew his constricted breath with difficulty into the dawn. Within very few hours, then, after he had performed all the offices of a sound and vigorous man, he died.

Hic homo summae frugalitatis, non minus patrimonii quam corporis diligens, cum me ex consuetudine mane vidisset, cum per totum diem amico graviter adfecto et sine spe iacenti usque in noctem adsedisset, cum hilaris cenasset, genere valitudinis praecipiti arreptus, angina, vix conpressum artatis faucibus spiritum traxit in lucem. Intra paucissimas ergo horas, quam omnibus erat sani ac valentis officiis functus, decessit.

Graft now your pears, Meliboeus, set your vines in rows.

Insere nunc, Meliboee, piros, pone ordine vites.

All things, believe me, are uncertain even for the fortunate. No one should promise himself anything of the future. Even what is held slips through the hands, and chance cuts into the very hour we press. Time rolls on by a fixed law indeed, but through the dark; and what is it to me, whether what is uncertain to me is certain to nature?

Omnia, mihi crede, etiam felicibus dubia sunt. Nihil sibi quisquam de futuro debet promittere. Id quoque, quod tenetur, per manus exit et ipsam, quam premimus, horam casus incidit, volvitur tempus rata quidem lege, sed per obscurum; quid autem ad me, an naturae certum sit quod mihi incertum est?

We set before ourselves long voyages and late returns to our country after wandering foreign shores, military service and the slow wages of camp toils, governorships and advancement through office upon office — while meanwhile death is at our side; and, since it is never thought of except as another’s, examples of mortality are thrust upon us again and again, to stick no longer than while we wonder at them.

Navigationes longas et pererratis litoribus alienis seros in patriam reditus proponimus, militiam et castrensium laborum tarda manipretia, procurationes officiorumque per officia processus, cum interim ad latus mors est, quae quoniam numquam cogitatur nisi aliena, subinde nobis ingeruntur mortalitatis exempla non diutius quam dum miramur haesura.

But what is more foolish than to wonder that a thing has happened on some one day, which can happen on every day? A limit indeed stands fixed for us, where the inexorable necessity of the fates has set it; but no one of us knows how near he moves to that limit. Let us therefore so shape our mind as though we had come to the end. Let us put nothing off. Let us daily balance our account with life.

Quid autem stultius quam mirari id ullo die factum, quod omni potest fieri? Stat quidem terminus nobis, ubi illum inexorabilis fatorum necessitas fixit, sed nemo scit nostrum, quam prope versetur terminum. Sic itaque formemus animum, tamquam ad extrema ventum sit. Nihil differamus. Cotidie cum vita paria faciamus.

The greatest fault of life is that it is always unfinished, that something of it is put off. He who daily lays the finishing hand on his life lacks no time. But from this lack are born fear and a craving for the future that gnaws the mind. Nothing is more wretched than the doubt of how the things coming on will turn out; how great that is which remains, and of what kind, the anxious mind is harried by an inexplicable dread.

Maximum vitae vitium est, quod inperfecta semper est, quod aliquid ex illa differtur. Qui cotidie vitae suae summam manum inposuit, non indiget tempore. Ex hac autem indigentia timor nascitur et cupiditas futuri exedens animum. Nihil est miserius dubitatione venientium quorsus evadant; quantum sit illud quod restat aut quale, sollicita mens inexplicabili formidine agitatur.

How shall we escape this tossing? In one way only: if our life does not jut forward, if it is gathered into itself. For he hangs upon the future to whom the present is void. But when whatever I owed to myself has been paid, when a steadied mind knows that there is no difference between a day and an age, it looks down from on high on whatever days and things are to come thereafter, and thinks with much laughter of the succession of the times. For what will the variety and shiftiness of chances disturb, if you are sure against the unsure?

Quo modo effugiemus hanc volutationem? Uno, si vita nostra non prominebit, si in se colligitur. Ille enim ex futuro suspenditur, cui inritum est praesens. Ubi vero, quidquid mihi debui, redditum est, ubi stabilita mens scit nihil interesse inter diem et saeculum, quicquid deinceps dierum rerumque venturum est, ex alto prospicit et cum multo risu seriem temporum cogitat. Quid enim varietas mobilitasque casuum perturbabit, si certus sis adversus incerta?

Therefore make haste to live, my Lucilius, and count each single day a single life. He who has fitted himself in this way, whose life has been each day complete, is untroubled; but for those who live in hope each nearest moment slips away, and greed steals in, and the fear of death, most wretched and making all things most wretched. Hence that most shameful prayer of Maecenas, in which he refuses neither weakness nor deformity nor, at the last, the sharp cross, provided that amid these evils his breath be prolonged:

Ideo propera, Lucili mi, vivere et singulos dies singulas vitas puta. Qui hoc modo se aptavit, cui vita sua cotidie fuit tota, securus est; in spem viventibus proximum quodque tempus elabitur subitque aviditas et miserrimus ac miserrima omnia efficiens metus mortis. Inde illud Maecenatis turpissimum votum, quo et debilitatem non recusat et deformitatem et novissime acutam crucem, dummodo inter haec mala spiritus prorogetur:

Make me weak in the hand, weak in foot and hip; pile on a hunchback’s swelling, shake my loose teeth: while life remains, it is well; keep this for me, even if I sit upon the sharp cross.

Debilem facito manu, debilem pede coxo, Tuber adstrue gibberum, lubricos quate dentes; Vita dum superest, benest; hanc mihi, vel acuta Si sedeam cruce, sustine.

What would be most wretched, if it befell, is prayed for, and the delay of torture is sought as though it were life. I should think him most contemptible if he wished to live right up to the cross. “You may indeed weaken me,” he says, “provided breath remain in a body broken and useless. Deform me, provided some span of time be added to the monstrous and distorted thing. Nail me up, and set the sharp cross beneath me to sit upon.” Is it worth so much to press one’s own wound and to hang stretched on the gibbet, in order to put off what is the best thing among evils — the end of the torture? Is it worth so much to have a breath, in order to give it up?

Quod miserrimum erat, si incidisset, optatur et tamquam vita petitur supplici mora. Contemptissimum putarem, si vivere vellet usque ad crucem: Tu ver, inquit, me debilites licet, dum spiritus in corpore fracto et inutili maneat. Depraves licet, dum monstroso et distorto temporis aliquid accedat. Suffigas Meet et acutam sessuro crucem subdas. Est tanti vulnus suum premere et patibulo pendere districtum, dum differat id, quod est in malis optimum, supplicii finem? Est tanti habere animam, ut agam?

Is dying, then, so wretched a thing?

Usque adeone mori miserum est?

Is anyone found who would rather waste away amid tortures, and perish limb by limb, and let out his soul so many times by drops, than breathe it out once? Is anyone found who would wish, driven to that unhappy wood, already crippled, already deformed and crushed into the foul swelling of shoulders and chest — one who had many causes of dying even short of the cross — to drag out a breath that will drag out so many torments? Deny now that it is a great benefit of nature, that we must die. Many are ready to bargain for worse still: even to betray a friend in order to live longer, and to hand over their children with their own hand to defilement, that they may go on seeing a daylight that has witnessed so many crimes. The craving for life must be shaken off, and we must learn that it makes no difference when you suffer what at some time must be suffered.

Invenitur aliquis, qui velit inter supplicia tabescere et perire membratim et totiens per stilicidia emittere animam quam semel exhalare? Invenitur, qui velit adactus ad illud infelix lignum, iam debilis, iam pravus et in foedum scapularum ac pectoris tuber elisus, cui multae moriendi causae etiam citra crucem fuerant, trahere animam tot tormenta tracturam? Nega nunc magnum beneficium esse naturae, quod necesse est mori. Multi peiora adhuc pacisci parati sunt: etiam amicum prodere, ut diutius vivant, et liberos ad stuprum manu sua tradere, ut contingat lucem videre tot consciam scelerum, Excutienda vitae cupido est discendumque nihil interesse, quando patiaris, quod quandoque patiendum est.

It matters how well you live, not how long; and often it is in this that one lives well — in not living long. Farewell.

Quam bene vivas refert, non quam diu; saepe autem in hoc est bene, ne diu. Vale.

As a man who wakes one who is seeing a pleasant dream is troublesome — for he takes away a pleasure that, though false, yet had the effect of a true one — so your letter did me an injury. For it called me back when I had given myself over to a fitting meditation and would have gone further, had I been allowed.

Quomodo molestus est iucundum somnium videnti qui excitat, aufert enim voluptatem, etiam si falsam, effectum tamen verae habentem; sic epistula tua mihi fecit iniuriam. Revocavit enim me cogitationi aptae traditum et iturum, si licuisset, ulterius.

It was a delight to inquire about the eternity of souls — nay, by Hercules, to believe in it. For I was lending myself, easy and willing, to the opinions of great men who promise so welcome a thing rather than prove it. I was giving myself up to so great a hope; already I was a weariness to myself, already I was despising the remnants of a broken age, about to pass over into that immense time and into the possession of all eternity — when suddenly I was startled awake by the receipt of your letter, and lost so fair a dream. Which I will seek again, once I have dismissed you, and buy back.

Iuvabat de aeternitate animarum quaerere, immo mehercules credere. Praebebam enim me facilem opinionibus magnorum virorum rem gratissimam promittentium magis quam probantium. Dabam me spei tantae. Iam eram fastidio mihi, iam reliquias aetatis infractae contemnebam in immensum illud tempus et in possessionem omnis aevi transiturus; cum subito experrectus sum epistula tua accepta et tam bellum somnium perdidi. Quod repetam, si te dimisero, et redimam.

Your first letter denies that I unfolded the whole question, in which I was trying to prove what our school holds: that the renown which comes after death is a good. For I had not, it says, resolved the objection set against us: “No good,” they say, “comes of things at a distance; but this consists of things at a distance.”

Negat me epistula prima totam quaestionem explicuisse, in qua probare conabar id quod nostris placet, claritatem, quae post mortem contingit, bonum esse. Id enim me non solvisse, quod opponitur nobis: Nullum, inquiunt, bonum ex distantibus. Hoc autem ex distantibus constat.

What you ask, my Lucilius, belongs to another point of the same question, and therefore I had put off not only this but also other matters bearing on it. For some rational topics, as you know, are mixed in with the moral. And so I treated that part which is properly moral: whether it is foolish and superfluous to carry our cares beyond the last day; whether our goods fall with us, and there is nothing of him who is nothing; whether from that which, when it shall be, we shall not feel, any fruit can be gathered or sought before it is.

Quod interrogas, mi Lucili, eiusdem quaestionis est loci alterius, et ideo non hoc tantum, sed alia quoque eodem pertinentia distuleram. Quaedam enim, ut scis, moralibus rationalia inmixta sunt. Itaque illam partem rectam et ad mores pertinentem tractavi: numquid stultum sit ac supervacuum ultra extremum diem curas, transmittere, an cadant bona nostra nobiscum nihilque sit eius, qui nullus est, an ex eo, quod, cum erit, sensuri non sumus, antequam sit, aliquis fructus percipi aut peti possit.

All these regard morals, and so were set in their own place. But what the dialecticians say against this opinion had to be set apart, and so was laid aside. Now, since you demand all, I will go through all that they say, then meet them one by one.

Haec omnia mores spectant; itaque suo loco posita sunt. At quae a dialecticis contra hanc opinionem dicuntur, segreganda fuerunt et ideo seposita sunt. Nunc, quia omnia exigis, omnia quae dicunt persequar, deinde singulis occurram.

Unless I premise something, what is to be refuted cannot be understood. What would I premise? That some bodies are continuous, like a man; some composite, like a ship, a house — in short, all whose diverse parts are forced by their joining into one; some made of things at a distance, whose members are still separate, like an army, a people, a senate. For those by whom such bodies are made up cohere by law or office, but by nature are divided and single. What else would I premise?

Nisi aliquid praedixero, intellegi non poterunt quae refellentur. Quid est, quod praedicere velim? Quaedam continua corpora esse, ut hominem; quaedam esse composita, ut navem, domum, omnia denique, quorum diversae partes iunctura in unum coactae sunt; quaedam ex distantibus, quorum adhuc membra separata sunt, tamquam exercitus, populus, senatus. Illi enim, per quos ista corpora efficiuntur, iure aut officio cohaerent, natura diducti et singuli sunt. Quid est, quod etiamnunc praedicere velim?

We hold that no good is which consists of things at a distance. For one good ought to be held together and ruled by one breath; the governing part of one good ought to be one. This, if ever you require it, is proved of itself; for now it had to be set down, because our own weapons are being hurled against us.

Nullum bonum putamus esse, quod ex distantibus constat. Uno enim spiritu unum bonum contineri ac regi debet, unum esse unius boni principale. Hoc si quando desideraveris, per se probatur; interim ponendum fuit, quia in nos nostra tela mittuntur.

“You say,” he objects, “that no good is of things at a distance? But this renown of good men is the favorable opinion of the good. For as fame is not the talk of one man, nor ill-fame the bad estimate of one, so renown is not to have pleased one good man. To make it renown, several distinguished and notable men must agree in it. But this is made up of the judgments of many — that is, of things at a distance; therefore it is not a good.”

Dicitis, inquit, nullum bonum ex distantibus esse? Claritas autem ista bonorum virorum secunda opinio est. Nam quomodo fama non est unius sermo nec infamia unius mala existimatio, sic nec claritas uni bono placuisse. Consentire in hoc plures insignes et spectabiles viri debent, ut claritas sit. Haec autem ex iudiciis plurium efficitur, id est distantium; ergo non est bonum.

“Renown,” he says, “is praise rendered to a good man by the good; praise is speech, a voice signifying something; but a voice, though it be of good men, is not a good. For not everything a good man does is a good. He both applauds and hisses; yet no one calls applause or a hiss a good, though he admire and praise all the man’s doings — no more than a sneeze or a cough. Therefore renown is not a good.”

Claritas, inquit, laus est a bonis bono reddita; laus oratio, vox est aliquid significans; vox est autem, licet virorum sit bonorum, non bonum. Nec enim quicquid vir bonus facit, bonum est. Nam et plaudit et sibilat, sed nec plausum quisquam nec sibilum, licet omnia eius admiretur et laudet, bonum dicit, non magis quam sternumentum aut tussim. Ergo claritas bonum non est.

“In sum, tell us whether it is the good of the praiser or of the praised: if you say it is the good of the praised, you do as ridiculous a thing as if you affirmed that another man’s good health were mine. But to praise the worthy is an honorable action; so it is the good of the praiser, whose action it is, not of us, who are praised.” And yet this was the very question.

Ad summam dicite nobis, utrum laudantis an laudati bonum sit: si laudati bonum esse dicitis, tam ridiculam rem facitis, quam si adfirmetis meum esse, quod alius bene valeat. Sed laudare dignos honesta actio est; ita laudantis bonum est, cuius actio est, non nostrum, qui laudamur. Atqui hoc quaerebatur.

I will now answer each point in passing. First, whether there is any good of things at a distance is even now in question, and each side has its arguments. Next, does renown require many votes? It can be content even with the judgment of one good man; one good man judges us good.

Respondebo nunc singulis cursim. Primum, an sit aliquod ex distantibus bonum, etiamnunc quaeritur et pars utraque sententias habet. Deinde claritas desiderat multa suffragia? Potest et unius boni viri iudicio esse contenta; unus nos bonus bonos iudicat.

“What then?” he says. “Will the esteem of one man be fame, and the spiteful talk of one ill-fame? Glory too,” he says, “I understand as more widely spread, for it demands the agreement of many.” The condition of these is different from that of renown. Why? Because, if a good man thinks well of me, I am in the same place as if all the good thought the same; for all of them, if they came to know me, would think the same. Their judgment is equal and one, and equally steeped in truth. They cannot disagree; so it is as good as if all thought the same, because they cannot think otherwise.

Quid ergo? inquit, et fama erit unius hominis existimatio et infamia unius malignus sermo? Gloriam quoque, inquit, latius fusam intellego, consensum enim multorum exigit. Diversa horum condicio est et illius. Quare? Quia, si de me bene vir bonus sentit, eodem loco sum, quo si omnes boni idem sentirent; omnes enim, si me cognoverint, idem sentient. Par illis idemque iudicium est, aeque vero inficiscitur. Dissidere non possunt; ita pro eo est, ac si omnes idem sentiant, quia aliud sentire non possunt.

For glory or fame the opinion of one is not enough. There one judgment can do what all can, because the judgment of all, if it were canvassed, would be one; here the judgments of unlike men are unlike. You will find feelings difficult, all things doubtful, fickle, suspect. Do you think there can be one opinion of all? There is not one opinion even of one man. The good man is pleased by the true, and of truth there is one force, one face; among these others the things they assent to are false. But of falsehoods there is never any constancy: they vary and disagree.

Ad gloriam aut famam non est satis unius opinio. Illic idem potest una sententia, quod omnium, quia omnium, si perrogetur, una erit; hic diversa dissimilium iudicia sunt. Difficiles adfectus, dubia omnia invenies, levia, suspecta. Putas tu posse unam omnium esse sententiam? Non est unius una sententia. Illi placet verum, veritatis una vis, una facies est; apud hos falsa sunt, quibus adsentiuntur. Numquam autem falsis constantia est: variantur et dissident.

“But praise,” he says, “is nothing but a voice, and a voice is not a good.” When they say that renown is praise rendered to the good by the good, they refer it not to the voice but to the judgment. For though a good man be silent, if he judges someone worthy of praise, that man has been praised.

Sed laus, inquit, nihil aliud quam vox est, vox autem bonum non est. Cum dicunt claritatem esse laudem bonorum a bonis redditam, non ad vocem referunt, sed ad sententiam. Licet enim vir bonus taceat, sed aliquem iudicet dignum laude esse, laudatus est.

Besides, praise is one thing, a eulogy another, which does require a voice. And so no one speaks of a funeral “praise,” but of a “eulogy,” whose function consists in a speech. When we say that someone is worthy of praise, we promise him not men’s kindly words, but their judgments. Therefore praise is also the silent act of one who thinks well and praises a good man within himself.

Praeterea aliud est laus, aliud laudatio, haec et vocem exigit. Itaque nemo dicit laudem funebrem, sed laudationem, cuius officium oratione constat. Cum dicimus aliquem laude dignum, non verba illi benigna hominum, sed iudicia promittimus. Ergo laus etiam taciti est bene sentientis ac bonum virum apud se laudantis.

Next, as I said, praise is referred to the mind, not to the words, which carry out the praise conceived and send it forth into the knowledge of the many. He praises who judges a thing worthy of praise. When that tragedian of ours says it is a magnificent thing to be praised by a praised man, he means a man worthy of praise. And when an equally ancient poet says “praise nourishes the arts,” he does not mean panegyric, which corrupts the arts. For nothing has so spoiled eloquence and every other study given over to the ears as popular applause.

Deinde, ut dixi, ad animum refertur laus, non ad verba, quae conceptam laudem egerunt et in notitiam plurium emittunt. Laudat qui laudandum esse iudicat. Cum tragicus ille apud nos ait magnificum esse laudari a laudato viro, laude digno ait. Et cum aeque antiquus poeta ait laus alit artis. non laudationem dicit, quae corrumpit artes. Nihil enim aeque et eloquentiam et omne aliud studium auribus deditum vitiavit quam popularis adsensio.

Fame certainly requires a voice; renown can fall to one even without a voice, content with the judgment. It is full not only among the silent, but even among those who cry out against it. I will say what the difference is between renown and glory: glory consists of the judgments of many, renown of the judgments of the good. “Whose good,” he asks, “is renown — that is, praise rendered to a good man by the good?”

Fama vocem utique desiderat, claritas potest etiam citra vocem contingere contenta iudicio. Plena est non tantum inter tacentis, sed etiam inter reclamantis. Quid intersit inter claritatem et gloriam dicam: gloria multorum iudiciis constat, claritas bonorum, Cuius, inquit, bonum est claritas, id est laus bono a bonis reddita?

Of the praised, or of the praiser? Of both. Mine, who am praised; for nature begot me loving all men, and I rejoice that I have done well, and am glad to have found grateful interpreters of my virtues — this is the good of the many, that they are grateful, but mine too. For I am so composed in mind that I judge the good of others my own, especially of those for whom I am myself the cause of good.

Utrum laudati an laudantis? Utriusque, Meum, qui laudor; quia natura me amantem omnium genuit, et bene fecisse gaudeo, et gratos me invenisse virtutum interpretes laetor; hoc plurium bonum est, quod grati sunt, sed et meum. Ita enim animo conpositus sum, ut aliorum bonum meum iudicem, utique eorum, quibus ipse sum boni causa.

It is also the good of the praisers, for it is performed by virtue; and every action of virtue is a good. This could not have fallen to them, unless I were such. Therefore it is the good of both to be deservedly praised — as much, by Hercules, as to have judged well is the good of the judge and of the man according to whom judgment is given. Do you doubt that justice is the good both of him who has it and of him to whom it pays the debt? To praise the deserving is justice; therefore it is the good of both.

Est istud laudantium bonum, virtute enim geritur; omnis autem virtutis actio bonum est. Hoc contingere illis non potuisset, nisi ego talis essem. Itaque utriusque bonum est merito laudari, tam mehercules quam bene iudicasse iudicantis bonum est et eius, secundum quem iudicatum est. Numquid dubitas, quin iustitia et habentis bonum sit et autem sit eius, cui debitum solvit? Merentem laudare iustitia est; ergo utriusque bonum est.

To these quibblers we shall have answered abundantly. But this ought not to be our aim — to argue subtleties and to drag philosophy down from her majesty into these straits. How much better to go by the open and straight road than to lay out for oneself twists which one must then retrace with great trouble! For these disputations are nothing but the play of men cleverly trying to catch one another.

Cavillatoribus istis abunde responderimus. Sed non debet hoc nobis esse propositum arguta disserere et philosophiam in has angustias ex sua maiestate detrahere; quanto satius est ire aperta via et recta quam sibi ipsum flexus disponere, quos cum magna molestia debeas relegere? Neque enim quicquam aliud istae disputationes sunt quam inter se perite captantium lusus.

Say rather how natural it is to stretch one’s mind into the immense. A great and noble thing is the human soul: it suffers no limits to be set for it but those it shares with god. First, it does not accept a lowly fatherland — Ephesus, or Alexandria, or any soil yet more thronged with dwellers or richer in roofs; its fatherland is whatever the highest and universal vault encloses in its circuit, all this dome within which lie seas with lands, within which the air, dividing things divine from human, also joins them, in which so many lights, set in order, keep watch upon their own tasks.

Dic potius, quam naturale sit in inmensum mentem suam extendere. Magna et generosa res est humanus animus: nullos sibi poni nisi communes et cum deo terminos patitur. Primum humilem non accipit patriam, Ephesum aut Alexandriam aut si quod est etiamnunc frequentius accolis laetiusve tectis solum; patria est illi quodcumque suprema et universa circuitu suo cingit, hoc omne convexum, intra quod iacent maria cum terris, intra quod aer humanis divina secernens etiam coniungit, in quo disposita tot lumina in actus suos excubant.

Next, it does not let a narrow span be given it: “All the years,” it says, “are mine.” No age is shut to great minds, no time is impassable to thought. When that day comes which sunders this mixture of the divine and human, I will leave the body here, where I found it, and give myself back to the gods. Not even now am I without them, but I am held back by a heavy and earthly thing.

Deinde artam aetatem sibi dari non sinit: omnes, inquit, anni mei sunt. Nullum saeculum magnis ingeniis clusum est, nullum non cogitationi pervium tempus. Cum venerit dies ille, qui mixtum hoc divini humanique secernat, corpus hic, ubi inveni, relinquam, ipse me dis reddam. Nec nunc sine illis sum, sed gravi terrenoque detineor.

Through these delays of mortal life there is a prelude to that better and longer life. As the mother’s womb holds us ten months and prepares us not for itself but for that place into which we seem to be sent forth, now fit to draw breath and to last in the open; so through this span which lies open from infancy to old age, we are ripening toward another birth. Another origin awaits us, another state of things. As yet we can bear the sky only at intervals; therefore look upon that decisive hour without fear: it is the last for the body, not for the soul.

Per has mortalis aevi moras illi meliori vitae longiorique proluditur. Quemadmodum decem mensibus tenet nos maternus uterus et praeparat non sibi, sed illi loco, in quem videmur emitti iam idonei spiritum trahere et in aperto durare; sic per hoc spatium, quod ab infantia patet in senectutem, in alium maturescimus partum. Alia origo nos expectat, alius rerum status. Nondum caelum nisi ex intervallo pati possumus; proinde intrepidus horam illam decretoriam prospice: non est animo suprema, sed corpori.

Whatever of your goods lies about you, look on it as the baggage of a wayside lodging: you must pass on.

Quidquid circa, te iacet rerum, tamquam hospitalis loci sarcinas specta: transeundum est.

Nature strips the one returning, as it strips the one entering. You may not carry out more than you brought in; nay, even of what you brought to life, a great part must be laid down. This that is wrapped about you will be drawn off — your last covering, your skin; the flesh will be drawn off, and the blood spread and running through the whole; the bones and sinews will be drawn off, the props of these fluid and slipping things.

Excutit redeuntem natura sicut intrantem. Non licet plus efferre quam intuleris, immo etiam ex eo, quod ad vitam adtulisti, pars magna ponenda est: detrahetur tibi haec circumiecta, novissimum velamentum tui, cutis; detrahetur caro et suffusus sanguis discurrensque per totum; detrahentur ossa nervique, firmamenta fluidorum ac labentium.

That day which you dread as your last is the birthday of the eternal. Lay down the burden; why do you hold back, as though you had not before now gone out of the body in which you lay hidden? You cling, you struggle; then too you were thrust out with a great effort of your mother. You groan, you weep; and this very weeping belongs to the newborn, but then it had to be pardoned: you had come raw and ignorant of all. Sent forth from the warm, soft cherishing of the mother’s womb, a freer air breathed upon you; then the touch of a hard hand met you, and, tender still and knowing nothing, you were stunned amid things unknown.

Dies iste, quem tamquam extremum reformidas, aeterni natalis est. Depone onus; quid cunctaris, tamquam non prius quoque relicto, in quo latebas, corpore exieris? Haeres, reluctaris; tum quoque magno nisu matris expulsus es. Gemis, ploras; et hoc ipsum flere nascentis est, sed tunc debebat ignosci: rudis et imperitus omnium veneras. Ex maternorum viscerum calido mollique fomento emissum adflavit aura liberior, deinde offendit durae manus tactus, tenerque adhuc et nullius rei gnarus obstipuisti inter ignota.

Now it is no new thing for you to be parted from that of which you were before a part; with an even mind let go your now superfluous limbs, and lay down this body you have inhabited so long. It will be torn apart, buried, abolished. Why do you grieve? It is the usual way: the wrappings always perish at a birth. Why do you love them so, as though they were your own? You were wrapped in them. The day will come that tears you out and leads you forth from the fellowship of a foul and stinking belly.

Nunc tibi non est novum separari ab eo, cuius ante pars fueris; aequo animo membra iam supervacua dimitte et istuc corpus inhabitatum diu pone. Scindetur, obruetur, abolebitur. Quid contristaris? Ita solet fieri: pereunt semper velamenta nascentem. Quid ista sic diligis quasi tua? Istis opertus es. veniet, qui te revellat dies et ex contubernio foedi atque olidi ventris educat.

From this, even now, withdraw yourself as much as you can, and from pleasure — except such as will cling to things necessary and serious; from here, a stranger now, meditate on something higher and more sublime. One day the secrets of nature will be uncovered to you, this fog will be scattered, and a clear light strike you from every side. Imagine to yourself how great that brightness is, with so many stars mingling their light together; no shadow will trouble its serenity. Every quarter of heaven will shine equally; day and night are the turns of the lowest air. Then you will say you have lived in darkness, when you have looked, whole, on the whole light — which now you gaze at dimly through the narrowest passages of the eyes, and yet admire even from afar. How will the divine light seem to you, when you have seen it in its own place?

Huic nunc quoque tu, quantum potes, subdue subduc te voluptatique, nisi quae necessariis seriisque cohaerebit; alienus iam hinc altius ab quid sublimiusque meditare. Aliquando naturae tibi arcana retegentur, discutietur ista caligo et lux undique clara percutiet. Imaginare tecum, quantus ille sit fulgor tot sideribus inter se lumen miscentibus; nulla serenum umbra turbabit. Aequaliter splendebit omne caeli latus; dies et nox aeris infimi vices sunt. Tunc in tenebris vixisse te dices, cum totam lucem et totus aspexeris, quam nunc per angustissimas oculorum vias obscure intuens. Et tamen admirans illam iam procul; quid tibi videbitur divina lux, cum illam suo loco videris?

This thought lets nothing sordid settle in the mind, nothing low, nothing cruel. It says that the gods are witnesses of all things; it bids us be approved by them, prepare ourselves before them for the future, and set eternity before us. Whoever has conceived this in his mind dreads no armies, is not shaken by the trumpet, is driven to fear by no threats.

Haec cogitatio nihil sordidum animo subsidere sinit, nihil humile, nihil crudele. Deos rerum omnium esse testes ait. Illis nos adprobari, illis in futurum parari iubet et aeternitatem proponere. Quam qui mente concepit, nullos horret exercitus, non ferretur tuba, nullis ad timorem minis agitur.

Much the man’s valor and much the glory of his race recur to his mind.

Multa viri virtus animo multusque recursat Gentis honos.

Why do you look round at those things which can perhaps befall you, but can also not befall you? Fire, I mean, the collapse of buildings, and the rest that happen to us by chance, not by ambush; look rather at those that watch us, that lie in wait for us. Rarer are the chances — though grave — of suffering shipwreck or being overturned in a carriage; from man to man the danger is daily. Against this make yourself ready, on this fix your eyes intently. No evil is more frequent, none more persistent, none more caressing.

Quid ista circumspicis, quae tibi possunt fortasse evenire, sed possunt et non evenire? Incendium dico, ruinam, alia, quae nobis incidunt, non insidiantur; illa potius vide, illa devita, quae nos observant, quae captant. Rariores sunt casus, etiam si graves, naufragium facere, vehiculo everti; ab homine homini cotidianum periculum. Adversus hoc te expedi, hoc intentis oculis intuere. Nullum est malum frequentius, nullum pertinacius, nullum blandius.

A storm threatens before it rises, buildings crack before they fall, smoke gives warning of fire; but ruin from a man is sudden, and the nearer it comes, the more carefully it is hidden. You are wrong if you trust the faces of those you meet; they have the shapes of men, the souls of wild beasts — except that with the beasts only the first onset is deadly: those they have passed by, they do not hunt. For nothing but necessity goads them to do harm; either hunger or fear drives them to the fight; but man takes pleasure in destroying man.

Ac tempestas minatur antequam surgat, crepant aedificia antequam corruant, praenuntiat fumus incendium; subita est ex homine pernicies et eo diligentius tegitur, quo propius accedit. Erras, si istorum tibi qui occurrunt vultibus credis; hominum effigies habent, animos ferarum, nisi quod illarum perniciosus est primus incursus; quos transiere, non quaerunt. Numquam enim illas ad nocendum nisi necessitas incitat; aut fame aut timore coguntur ad pugnam; homini perdere hominem libet.

Yet think of the danger from a man in such a way as to think also what a man’s duty is. Look to the one, that you be not harmed; to the other, that you do no harm. Rejoice in the advantages of all, be moved by their misfortunes, and remember what you ought to render, and what to beware of.

Tu tamen ita cogita, quod ex homine periculum sit, ut cogites, quod sit hominis officium. Alterum intuere, ne laedaris, alterum ne laedas. Commodis omnium laeteris, movearis incommodis et memineris, quae praestare debeas, quae cavere.

By living thus, what will you gain? Not that they may not harm you, but that they may not deceive you. As much as you can, withdraw into philosophy: she will shelter you in her bosom; in her sanctuary you will be either safe or safer. Men do not collide except when walking on the same road. But philosophy herself you must not flaunt; for many, handled insolently and defiantly, she has been a cause of danger.

Sic vivendo quid consequaris? Non te ne noceant, sed ne fallant. Quantum potes autem, in philosophiam recede: illa te sinu suo proteget, in huius sacrario eris aut tutus aut tutior. Non arietant inter se nisi in eadem ambulantes via. Ipsam autem philosophiam non debebis iactare; multis fuit periculi causa insolenter tractata et contumaciter.

Let her strip you of your vices, not reproach others with theirs. Let her not shrink from public custom, nor act so as to seem to condemn whatever she does not do. One may be wise without pomp, without ill-will. Farewell.

Tibi vitia detrahat, non aliis exprobret. Non abhorreat a publicis moribus nec hoc agat, ut quicquid non facit, damnare videatur. Licet sapere sine pompa, sine invidia. Vale.

Into my Nomentan estate I fled — from what, do you suppose? The city? No: a fever, and one creeping up on me at that. It had already laid its hand on me. The doctor said it was the onset, with the pulse disturbed, irregular, throwing off its natural measure. So at once I ordered the carriage made ready; though my Paulina held me back, I persisted in setting out. I had on my lips that saying of my master Gallio, who, when he began to run a fever in Achaia, boarded ship at once, crying that the malady belonged not to the body but to the place.

In Nomentanum meum fugi, quid putas? Urbem? Immo febrem et quidem subrepentem. Iam manum mihi iniecerat. Medicus initia esse dicebat motis venis et incertis et naturalem turbantibus modum. Protinus itaque parari vehiculum iussi; Paulina mea retinente exire perseveravi; illud mihi ore erat domini mei Gallionis, qui cum in Achaia febrem habere coepisset, protinus navem ascendit clamitans non corporis esse, sed loci morbum.

This I said to my Paulina, who bids me look after my health. For since I know that her breath turns upon mine, I begin — that I may take thought for her — to take thought for myself. And though old age has made me braver in the face of many things, I lose this benefit of my years; for it comes into my mind that within this old man there is a young one too, who must be spared. And so, since I cannot win from her that she love me more bravely, she wins from me that I love myself more carefully.

Hoc ego Paulinae meae dixi, quae mihi valitudinem meam commendat. Nam cum sciam spiritum illius in meo verti, incipio, ut illi consulam, mihi consulere. Et cum me fortiorem senectus ad multa reddiderit, hoc beneficium aetatis amitto, venit enim mihi in mentem, in hoc sene et adulescentem esse, cui parcitur. Itaque quoniam ego ab illa non impetro, ut me fortius amet, a me impetrat illa, ut me diligentius amem.

For honorable affections must be indulged; and sometimes, even when reasons press the other way, the breath must be called back — even with torment — for the honor of one’s own people, and held fast on the very lips, since a good man must live not as long as it pleases him but as long as he ought. The man who counts neither wife nor friend worth enough to linger longer in life for, who will persist in dying — he is a self-indulgent man. This too let the soul command itself, when the good of one’s own people demands it: not only, if it wishes to die, but if it has begun to, let it break off and lend itself to its people.

Indulgendum est enim honestis adfectibus; et interdum, etiam si premunt causae, spiritus in honorem suorum vel cum tormento revocandus et in ipso ore retinendus est, cum bono viro vivendum sit non quamdiu iuvat sed quamdiu oportet. Ille, qui non uxorem, non amicum tanti putat, ut diutius in vita commoretur, qui perseverabit mori, delicatus est. Hoc quoque imperet sibi animus, ubi utilitas suorum exigit, nec tantum, si vult mori, sed si coepit, intermittat et suis se commodet.

It is the mark of a great soul to return to life for another’s sake, which great men have often done. But I judge it also the height of human kindness to guard one’s own old age more attentively — whose greatest fruit is a more untroubled care of oneself and a more spirited use of life — if you know that to someone of your own it is sweet, useful, to be wished for.

Ingentis animi est aliena causa ad vitam reverti, quod magni viri saepe fecerunt. Sed hoc quoque summae humanitatis existimo, senectutem suam, cuius maximus fructus est securior sui tutela et vitae usus animosior, attentius custodire, si scias alicui tuorum esse dulce, utile, optabile.

This thing, besides, holds in itself no slight joy and reward; for what is more delightful than to be so dear to one’s wife that for this very reason you become dearer to yourself? So my Paulina can charge to my account not only her own fear, but mine as well.

Habet praeterea in se non mediocre ista res gaudium et mercedem; quid enim iucundius quam uxori tam carum esse, ut propter hoc tibi carior fias? Potest itaque Paulina mea non tantum suum mihi timorem inputare, sed etiam meum.

You ask, then, how the plan of departure turned out for me? As soon as I escaped the heaviness of the city and that reek of smoking kitchens, which, once stirred, pour out with their dust whatever pestilential vapor they hold, I felt my health changed at once. How much strength, do you suppose, was added after I reached the vineyards? Loosed into the pasture, I fell upon my food. So now I have recovered myself; that languor of a body in doubt and ill-disposed did not last. I begin to study with my whole soul.

Quaeris ergo, quomodo mihi consilium profectionis cesserit? Ut primum gravitatem urbis excessi et illum odorem culinarum fumantium, quae motae quicquid pestiferi vaporis obferunt, cum pulvere effundunt, protinus mutatam valitudinem sensi. Quantum deinde adiectum putas viribus, postquam vineas attigi? In pascuum emissus cibum meum invasi. Repeti vi ergo iam me; non permansit marcor ille corporis dubii et male cogitantis. Incipio toto animo studere.

Toward this the place contributes little, unless the soul makes itself available to itself — the soul that will have its retreat, if it wishes, in the very midst of business; but the man who picks out regions and hunts for leisure will find everywhere something to distract him. For they say that Socrates, to a man complaining that his travels had done him no good, replied: “Not undeservedly does this befall you; for you travelled in your own company.”

Non multum ad hoc locus confert, nisi se sibi praestat animus, qui secretum in occupationibus mediis, si volet, habebit; at ille, qui regiones eligit et otium captat, ubique, quo distringatur, inveniet. Nam Socraten querenti cuidam, quod nihil sibi peregrinationes profuissent, respondisse ferunt: non inmerito hoc tibi evenit; tecum enim peregrinabaris.

O how well it would go with some, if they could wander away from themselves! As it is, they crowd themselves, harass themselves, corrupt themselves, terrify themselves. What does it profit to cross the sea and change cities? If you wish to escape those things that press you, you must not be in another place, but be another man. Suppose you have come to Athens, suppose to Rhodes; choose any city at your own discretion: what does it matter what character it has? You will bring your own.

O quam bene cum quibusdam ageretur, si a se aberrarent! Nunc premunt se ipsi, sollicitant, corrumpunt, territant. Quid prodest mare traicere et urbes mutare? Si vis ista, quibus urgueris, effugere, non aliubi sis oportet, sed alius. Puta venisse te Athenas, puta Rhodon; elige arbitrio tuo civitatem: quid ad rem pertinet, quos illa mores habeat? Tuos adferes.

You will judge riches a good: poverty will rack you — and, what is most wretched of all, a false poverty. For however much you possess, yet, because someone has more, you will think yourself fallen short by just as much as you are outdone. You will judge honors a good: it will gall you that this man was made consul, that one even re-elected; you will envy every time you read a name more often in the rolls of office. So great will be the frenzy of ambition that no one will seem behind you, if anyone has been before you.

Divitias iudicabis bonum: torquebit te paupertas, quod est miserrimum, falsa. Quamvis enim multum possideas, tamen, quia aliquis plus habet, tanto tibi videris defici, quanto vinceris. Honores iudicabis bonum: male te habebit ille consul factus, ille etiam refectus, invidebis, quotiens aliquem in fastis saepius legeris. Tantus erit ambitionis furor, ut nemo tibi post te videatur, si aliquis ante te fuerit.

to have escaped through so many cities of the Argives, and held your flight through the midst of the foe?

evasisse tot urbes Argolicas mediosque fugam tenuisse per hostis?

You will judge it the gravest of evils to lose one of those you love — when all the while this will be as silly as to weep because the leaves fall from the pleasant trees that adorn your house. Whatever delights you, look upon it just as on green leaves: while they are green, use them; one on one day, another on another, chance will shake down. But just as the loss of foliage is light, because it grows again, so too is the loss of those you love and reckon the delights of life, because they are made good again, even if they are not reborn.

Gravissimum iudicabis malum, aliquem ex his, quos amabis, amittere, cum interim hoc tam ineptum erit quam flere, quod arboribus amoenis et domum tuam ornantibus decidant folia. Quicquid te delectat, aeque vide ut flores virides; dum virent, utere;2 alium alio die casus excutiet. Sed quemadmodum frondium iactura facilis est, quia renascuntur, sic istorum, quos amas quosque oblectamenta vitae putas esse, damnum, quia reparantur, etiam si non renascuntur.

But they will not be the same. Nor will you yourself be the same. Every day, every hour changes you; but in others the plunder shows itself more easily, in oneself it lies hidden, because it does not happen out in the open. Others are carried off, but we ourselves are filched from ourselves by stealth. Of none of this will you take thought, nor set remedies against your wounds, but you will sow for yourself the seeds of anxiety — hoping some things, despairing of others. If you are wise, mix the one with the other: neither hope without despair nor despair without hope.

Sed non erunt idem. Ne tu quidem idem eris. Omnis dies, omnis hora te mutat; sed in aliis rapina facilius apparet, hic latet, quia non ex aperto fiet. Alii auferuntur, at ipsi nobis furto subducimur. Horum nihil cogitabis nec remedia vulneribus oppones, sed ipse tibi seres sollicitudinum causas aha sperando, alia desperando. Si sapis, alterum alteri misce: nec speraveris sine desperatione nec desperaveris sine spe.

What by itself could travel ever profit anyone? It has tempered no pleasures, reined in no desires, repressed no fits of anger, broken no untamed onslaughts of love; in a word, it has drawn no evils out of the soul. It has given no judgment, dispelled no error, but, like a boy marvelling at things unknown, has held us for a brief while by the novelty of something or other.

Quid per se peregrinatio prodesse cuiquam potuit? Non voluptates illa temperavit, non cupiditates refrenavit, non iras repressit, non indomitos amoris impetus fregit, nulla denique animo mala eduxit. Non iudicium dedit, non discussit errorem, sed ut puerum ignota mirantem ad breve tempus rerum aliqua novitate detinuit.

For the rest, it provokes the inconstancy of a mind already most sick; the very tossing makes it more changeable and more flighty. And so the places they had sought most eagerly they abandon more eagerly, and like birds fly across them and, quicker than they had come, are gone.

Ceterum inconstantia mentis, quae maxime aegra est, lacessit, mobiliorem levioremque reddit ipsa iactatio. Itaque, quae petierant cupidissime loca, cupidius deserunt et avium modo transvolant citiusque quam venerant, abeunt.

Travel will give you acquaintance with nations, will show you new shapes of mountains, unvisited stretches of plain and valleys watered by streams that never fail, the nature of some river held under observation — whether, like the Nile, it swells with its summer rising, or, like the Tigris, is snatched from the eyes and, its course driven through hidden ways, restored to its undiminished bulk, or, like the Maeander — the drill and the sport of all the poets — coils in frequent windings and, often brought close in its channel to its own neighborhood, is bent back before it flows into itself; but it will make you neither better nor sounder.

Peregrinatio notitiam dabit gentium, novas tibi montium formas ostendet, invisitata spatia camporum et inriguas perennibus aquis valles, alicuius fluminis sub observatione naturam, sive ut Nilus aestivo incremento tumet, sive ut Tigris eripitur ex oculis et acto per occulta cursu integrae magnitudini redditur, sive ut Maeander, poetarum omnium exercitati et ludus, implicatur crebris anfractibus et saepe in vicinum alveo suo admotus, antequam sibi influat, flectitur; ceterum neque meliorem faciet neque saniorem.

One must dwell among studies and among the authors of wisdom, to learn what has been found out and to seek what has not yet been found; thus the soul is drawn out of the most wretched slavery and claimed into freedom. But as long as you do not know what is to be fled and what sought, what necessary and what superfluous, what just and what unjust, this will not be travelling, but straying.

Inter studia versandum est et inter auctores sapientiae, ut quaesita discamus, nondum inventa quaeramus; sic eximendus animus ex miserrima servitute in libertatem adseritur. Quamdiu quidem nesciens, quid fugiendum quid petendum, quid necessarium quid supervacuum, quid iustum quid iniustum sit, non erit hoc peregrinari, sed errare.

This running about will bring you no help, for you travel with your passions and your evils follow you. Would that indeed they only followed! They would be farther off; as it is, you carry them, you do not lead them. And so everywhere they press you and scald you with equal discomforts. It is a medicine that the sick man should seek, not a region.

Nullam tibi opem feret iste discursus, peregrinaris enim cum adfectibus tuis et mala te tua sequuntur. Utinam quidem sequerentur. Longius abessent; nunc fers illa, non ducis. Itaque ubique te premunt et paribus incommodis urunt. Medicina aegro, non regio, quaerenda est.

Someone has broken his leg or wrenched a joint: he does not climb into a carriage or board a ship, but calls a doctor, to have the broken part set and the dislocated one put back in place. What then? Do you believe that a soul broken and wrenched in so many places can be healed by a change of place? That malady is too great to be cured by a ride.

Fregit aliquis crus aut extorsit articulum: non vehiculum navemque conscendit, sed advocat medicum, ut fracta pars iungatur, ut luxata in locum reponatur. Quid ergo? Animum tot locis fractum et extortum credis locorum mutatione posse sanari? Maius est istud malum, quam ut gestatione curetur.

Travel makes no doctor, makes no orator; no art is learned by place. What then? Is wisdom, the greatest art of all, gathered up on a journey? There is no road, believe me, that will set you beyond your desires, beyond your angers, beyond your fears; or if there were, the human race would march there in a column. So long will those evils press and waste you, as you wander over lands and seas, as long as you carry the causes of your evils.

Peregrinatio non facit medicum, non oratorem, nulla ars loco discitur. Quid ergo? Sapientia, ars omnium maxima, in itinere colligitur? Nullum est, mihi crede, iter, quod te extra cupiditates, extra iras, extra metus sistat; aut si quod esset, agmine facto gens illuc humana pergeret. Tamdiu ista urguebunt mala macerabuntque per terras ac maria vagum, quamdiu malorum gestaveris causas.

You wonder that flight does not profit you? The things you flee are with you. Mend yourself, then; lift off your burdens, and keep within a wholesome measure the cravings that must be removed. Scrape every wickedness from your soul. If you wish your travels to be pleasant, heal your companion. Greed will cling to you as long as you live with a greedy and sordid man; swollen pride will cling as long as you keep company with the proud. You will never lay aside savagery in a torturer’s mess. The fellowships of adulterers will fire your lusts.

Fugam tibi non prodesse miraris? Tecum sunt, quae fugis. Te igitur emenda, onera tibi detrahe et demenda desideria intra salutarem modum contine. Omnem ex animo erade nequitiam. Si vis peregrinationes habere iucundas, comitem tuum sana. Haerebit tibi avaritia, quamdiu avaro sordidoque convixeris; haerebit tumor, quamdiu superbo conversaberis. Numquam saevitiam in tortoris contubernio pones. Incendent libidines tuas adulterorum sodalicia.

If you wish to be stripped of your vices, you must withdraw far from the examples of vice. The miser, the seducer, the cruel man, the cheat — who would have done you much harm had they been near you — are within you. Cross over to better men: live with the Catos, with Laelius, with Tubero. But if it pleases you to share life with Greeks too, keep company with Socrates, with Zeno: the one will teach you to die if you must, the other before you must. Live with Chrysippus, with Posidonius: these will hand down to you the knowledge of things human and divine, these will bid you be at work, and not merely talk cleverly and toss out words for the delight of an audience, but harden the soul and raise it up against threats.

Si velis vitiis exui, longe a vitiorum exemplis recedendum est. Avarus, corruptor, saevus, fraudulentus, multum nocituri, si prope a te fuissent, intra te sunt. Ad meliores transi: cum Catonibus vive, cum Laelio, cum Tuberone. Quod si convivere etiam Graecis iuvat, cum Socrate, cum Zenone versare; alter te docebit mori, si necesse erit, alter, antequam necesse erit. vive cum Chrysippo, cum Posidonio: hi tibi tradent humanorum divinorumque notitiam, hi iubebunt in opere esse nec tantum scite loqui et in oblectationem audientium verba iactare, sed animum indurare et adversus minas erigere.

For there is one harbor of this fluctuating and troubled life: to despise what is to come, to stand confident and ready, and to take the weapons of fortune full upon the breast, neither cowering nor turning aside.

Unus est enim huius vitae fluctuantis et turbidae portus eventura contemnere, stare fidenter ac paratum tela fortunae adverso pectore excipere, non latitantem nec tergiversantem.

Nature has brought us forth high-souled, and as to some animals she has given ferocity, to others cunning, to others fearfulness, so to us a glory-seeking and lofty spirit, that looks for where it may live most honorably, not where most safely — most like the universe, which, so far as mortal steps are allowed, it follows and emulates. It thrusts itself forward; it believes it is praised and watched. It is master of all things, above all things;

Magnanimos nos natura produxit et ut quibusdam animalibus ferum dedit, quibusdam subdolum, quibusdam pavidum, ita nobis gloriosum et excelsum spiritum, quaerentem ubi honestissime, non ubi tutissime vivat, simillimum mundo, quem quantum mortalium passibus licet, sequitur aemulaturque. Profert se, laudari et aspici credit. Dominus omnium est, supra omnia est;

Shapes terrible to see, and Death and Toil;

Terribiles visu formae letumque labosque;

What reason is there, I beg you, Lucilius, why a man should fear toil, a human being death? So often these fellows cross my path who think that whatever they cannot do cannot be done, and say that we speak of greater things than human nature can bear.

Quid est, obsecro te, Lucili, cur timeat laborem vir, mortem homo? Totiens mihi occurrunt isti, qui non putant fieri posse quicquid facere non possunt, et aiunt nos loqui maiora quam quae humana natura sustineat.

But how much better do I think of them! They too can do these things, but they will not. In short, whom has the attempt ever failed? To whom have such things not looked easier in the doing? It is not because things are hard that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that they are hard.

At quanto ego de illis melius existimo! Ipsi quoque haec possunt facere, sed nolunt. Denique quem umquam ista destituere temptantem? Cui non faciliora apparuere in actu? Non quia difficilia sunt, non audemus, sed quia non audemus, difficilia sunt.

If, however, you want an example, take Socrates — an old man inured to suffering, tossed through every hardship, yet unconquered both by poverty (which his domestic burdens made the heavier for him) and by toils, including those he bore as a soldier. And by what trials he was schooled at home, whether we recall his wife, savage in temper and shrill in tongue, or his children, unteachable and liker their mother than their father. If you reckon truly, he lived either in war, or under tyranny, or in a freedom more savage than wars and tyrants. For twenty-seven years the fighting went on; once the arms were laid down, the state was handed over for punishment to thirty tyrants, of whom most were his enemies.

Si tamen exemplum desideratis, accipite Socraten, perpessicium senem, per omnia aspera iactatum, invictum tamen et paupertate, quam graviorem illi domestica onera faciebant, et laboribus, quos militares quoque pertulit. Quibus ille domi exercitus est, sive uxorem eius reminiscimur moribus feram, lingua petulantem, sive liberos indociles et matri quam patri similiores. Si vere reputes, aut in bello fuit aut in tyrannide aut in libertate bellis ac tyrannis saeviore. viginti et septem annis pugnatum est; post finita arma triginta tyrannis noxae dedita est civitas, ex quibus plerique inimici erant.

His last condemnation was filled out under the gravest titles: there was laid against him both the violation of religion and the corruption of the youth, whom he was said to incite against the gods, against their fathers, against the commonwealth. After this, the prison and the poison. So far were these from moving the soul of Socrates that they did not even move his face. O that marvelous and singular glory! Right to the end no one saw Socrates either gladder or sadder. He was level amid so great an unevenness of fortune.

Novissima damnatio est sub gravissimis nominibus impleta: obiecta est et religionum violatio et iuventutis corruptela, quam inmittere in deos, in patres, in rem publicam dictus est. Post haec carcer et venenum. Haec usque eo animum Socratis non moverant, ut ne vultum quidem moverent. O illam mirabilem laudem et singularem! Usque ad extremum nec hilariorem quisquam nec tristiorem Socraten vidit. Aequalis fuit in tanta inaequalitate fortunae.

Do you want a second example? Take this man, the younger Marcus Cato, with whom fortune dealt both more savagely and more stubbornly. When she had stood against him at every point, and at last in death itself, he showed nonetheless that a brave man can live in fortune’s despite, and die in fortune’s despite. His whole life was spent either in civil arms or in a peace already conceiving civil war. And of him too you may say that, no less than Socrates, he bound himself over to freedom among slaves — unless perhaps you think Gnaeus Pompey and Caesar and Crassus were allies of freedom.

Vis alterum exemplum? Accipe hunc M. Catonem recentiorem, cum quo et infestius fortuna egit et pertinacius. Cui cum omnibus locis obstitisset, novissime et in morte, ostendit tamen virum fortem posse invita fortuna vivere, invita mori. Tota illi aetas aut in armis est exacta civilibus aut in toga concipiente iam civile bellum. Et hunc licet dicas non minus quam Socraten in servis se libertati addixisse, nisi forte Cn. Pompeium et Caesarem et Crassum putas libertatis socios fuisse.

No one saw Cato altered, though the commonwealth was altered so many times: he showed himself the same in every state — in the praetorship, in defeat, under accusation, in his province, on the platform, in the army, in death. In short, in that great trembling of the commonwealth, when on the one side stood Caesar, propped by ten most warlike legions and all the auxiliaries of foreign nations, and on the other Gnaeus Pompey, one man enough against all — when some inclined to Caesar, others to Pompey, Cato alone made up a party for the commonwealth too.

Nemo mutatum Catonem totiens mutata re publica vidit: eundem se in omni statu praestitit, in praetura, in repulsa, in accusatione, in provincia, in contione, in exercitu, in morte. Denique in illa rei publicae trepidatione, cum illinc Caesar esset decem legionibus pugnacissimis subnixus, totis exterarum gentium praesidiis, hinc Cn. Pompeius, satis unus adversus omnia, cum alii ad Caesarem inclinarent, alii ad Pompeium, solus Cato fecit aliquas et rei publicae partes.

Atreus’ son and Priam, and Achilles fierce to both.

Atriden Priamumque et saevom ambobus Achillen.

For he condemns each, disarms each. This sentence he passes on both: he says that, if Caesar wins, he will die; if Pompey, he will go into exile. What had he to fear, who had appointed for himself, as vanquished and as victor alike, what the most furious enemies could have appointed? And so he perished by his own decree. You see that men can endure toil:

Utrumque enim improbat, utrumque exarmat. Hanc fert de utroque sententiam: ait se, si Caesar vicerit, moriturum, si Pompeius, exulaturum. Quid habebat, quod timeret, qui ipse sibi et victo et victori constituerat, quae constituta esse ab hostibus iratissimis poterant? Periit itaque ex decreto suo. vides posse homines laborem pati:

through the midst of Africa’s wastes he led an army on foot; you see that thirst can be borne: dragging the remnants of a beaten army over parched hills without any baggage, he bore the lack of water in his armor and, whenever there was a chance of water, drank last; you see that honor and disgrace can be despised: on the very day he was defeated he played ball in the assembly-ground; you see that the power of one’s superiors can go unfeared: he challenged both Pompey and Caesar at once, when no man dared offend the one except to win the other’s favor; you see that death can be despised as much as exile: he proclaimed against himself both exile and death and, in the meantime, war.

per medias Africae solitudines pedes duxit exercitum, vides posse tolerari sitim: in collibus arentibus sine ullis inpedimcntis inpedimentis victi exercitus reliquias trahens inopiam umoris loricatus tulit et, quotiens aquae fuerat occasio, novissimus bibit, vides honorem et notam posse contemni: eodem quo repulsus est die in comitio pila lusit, vides posse non timeri potentiam superiorum: et Pompeium et Caesarem, quorum nemo alterum offendere audebat nisi ut alterum demereretur, simul provocavit, vides tam mortem posse contemni quam exilium: et exilium sibi indixit et mortem et interim bellum.

We can, then, have spirit enough against these things, if only we are willing to draw our neck from under the yoke. But first of all, pleasures must be spat out; they unstring and unman us, and they ask for much — and much is what must be begged of fortune. Then riches must be scorned: they are the purchase-price of our slaveries. Gold and silver and whatever else weighs down a prosperous house — let it be left behind; freedom cannot be had for nothing. If you value it highly, all else must be valued cheaply. Farewell.

Possumus itaque adversus ista tantum habere animi, libeat modo subducere iugo collum. In primis autem respuendae voluptates; enervant et effeminant et multum petunt, multum autem a fortuna petendum est. Deinde spernendae opes: auctoramenta sunt servitutum. Aurum et argentum et quicquid aliud felices domos onerat, relinquatur; non potest gratis constare libertas. Hanc si magno aestimas, omnia parvo aestimanda sunt. Vale.

What you must observe, to live more safely, I will tell you. Yet I think you should hear these precepts as if I were prescribing for you by what method you might keep your health on your estate at Ardea. Consider what they are that goad a man to the ruin of a man: you will find hope, envy, hatred, fear, contempt.

Quae observanda tibi sint, ut tutior vivas, dicam. Tu tamen sic audias censeo ista praecepta, quomodo si tibi praeciperem, qua ratione bonam valitudinem in Ardeatino tuereris. Considera, quae sint, quae hominem in perniciem hominis instigent: invenies spem, invidiam, odium, metum, contemptum.

Of all these the lightest by far is contempt, so that many have taken cover in it as a remedy. The man someone despises, he wrongs no doubt, but he passes on; no one harms a despised man persistently, no one harms him with care. Even a man lying in the battle-line is passed over; the fight is with him who stands.

Ex omnibus istis adeo levissimum est contemptus, ut multi in illo remedii causa delituerint. Quem quis contemnit, violat sine dubio, sed transit; nemo homini contempto pertinaciter, nemo diligenter nocet. Etiam in acie iacens praeteritur, cum stante pugnatur.

The hope of the wicked you will avoid if you have nothing to whet another’s greedy and wicked craving, if you possess nothing conspicuous. For even small things are coveted, if they are notable, if they are rare. Envy you will escape if you do not thrust yourself on men’s eyes, if you do not flaunt your goods, if you know how to take your joy in your own bosom.

Spem inproborum vitabis, si nihil habueris, quod cupiditatem alienam et inprobam inritet, si nihil insigne possederis. Concupiscuntur enim etiam parva, si notabilia sunt, si rara. Invidiam effugies, si te non ingesseris oculis, si bona tua non iacta veris, si scicris scieris in sinu gaudere.

Hatred is either from an offense — this you will avoid by provoking no one — or unearned: from this common sense will protect you. It has been dangerous to many; some have had a hatred without an enemy. That you not be feared, a middling fortune and a mildness of nature will secure for you; let men know you to be one whom they can offend without danger, and let your reconciliation be both easy and sure. To be feared is as troublesome at home as abroad, as much from slaves as from the free. There is no one without strength enough to do harm. Add to this that the man who is feared, fears; no one has been able to be a terror in safety.

Odium aut est ex offensa: hoc vitabis neminem lacessendo; aut gratuitum: a quo te sensus communis tuebitur. Fuit hoc multis periculosum; quidam odium habuerunt nec inimicum. Illud, ne timearis, praestabit tibi et fortunae mediocritas et ingenii lenitas; eum esse te homines sciant, quem offendere sine periculo possint; reconciliatio tua et facilis sit et certa. Timeri autem tam domi molestum est quam foris, tam a servis quam a liberis. Nulli non ad nocendum satis virium est. Adice nunc, quod qui timetur, timet; nemo potuit terribilis esse secure.

Contempt remains, whose measure is in the power of the man who has fastened it to himself — who is despised because he wished it, not because he had to. The inconvenience of this both good accomplishments dispel and the friendships of those who carry weight with some powerful man, to whom it will be expedient to be attached, not entangled, lest the remedy cost more than the danger.

Contemptus superest, cuius modum in sua potestate habet, qui illum sibi adiunxit, qui contemnitur quia voluit, non quia debuit. Huius incommodum et artes bonae discutiunt et amicitiae eorum, qui apud aliquem potentem potentes sunt, quibus adplicari expediet, non inplicari, ne pluris remedium quam periculum constet.

Nothing, however, will help so much as to keep quiet and to talk least with others, most with oneself. There is a certain sweetness in conversation that creeps in and coaxes and, no otherwise than drunkenness or love, draws out our secrets. No one will keep silent what he has heard. No one will tell only as much as he heard. He who has not kept the matter silent will not keep silent its author. Each man has someone to whom he entrusts as much as was entrusted to him. Though he should keep guard over his own chatter and be content with one man’s ears, he will make a crowd of it, if what was just now a secret becomes rumor.

Nihil tamen aeque proderit quam quiescere et minimum cum aliis loqui, plurimum secum. Est quaedam dulcedo sermonis, quae inrepit et eblanditur et non aliter quam ebrietas aut amor secreta producit. Nemo quod audierit, tacebit. Nemo quantum audierit, loquetur. Qui rem non tacuerit, non tacebit auctorem. Habet unusquisque aliquem, cui tantum credat, quantum ipsi creditum est. Ut garrulitatem suam custodiat et contentus sit unius auribus, populum faciet, si quod modo secretum erat, rumor est.

A great part of security is to do nothing unjustly. A confused and disordered life the uncontrolled lead; they fear as much as they harm, and at no time are they free of care. For they tremble once they have acted, they are stuck fast; their conscience does not let them do anything else and again and again forces them to answer to itself. Whoever waits for the penalty pays it; and whoever has deserved it, waits for it.

Securitatis magna portio est nihil inique facere. Confusam vitam et perturbatam inpotentes agunt; tantum metuunt, quantum nocent, nec ullo tempore vacant. Trepidant enim, cum fecerunt, haerent; conscientia aliud agere non patitur ac subinde respondere ad se cogit. Dat poenas quisquis expectat; quisquis autem meruit, expectat.

Some thing may make a man safe in a bad conscience, but nothing free of care; for he thinks that, even if he is not caught, he can be. He stirs even in his sleep, and whenever he speaks of another’s crime he thinks of his own; it does not seem to him sufficiently blotted out, not sufficiently covered. A guilty man has sometimes had the luck of lying hidden, never the assurance of it. Farewell.

Tutum aliqua res in mala conscientia praestat, nulla securum; putat enim se, etiam si non deprenditur, posse deprendi. Et inter somnos movetur et, quotiens alicuius scelus loquitur, de suo cogitat; non satis illi obliteratum videtur, non satis tectum. Nocens habuit aliquando latendi fortunam, numquam fiduciam. Vale.

I write back to your letters rather slowly — not because I am hemmed in by business. Beware of listening to that excuse; I am free, and all are free who wish to be. No affairs pursue anyone. Men embrace them of their own accord and think that being busy is a proof of happiness. What, then, was the reason I did not write back at once? The thing you were asking about was coming into the fabric of my work.

Tardius rescribo ad epistulas tuas, non quia districtus occupationibus sum. Hanc excusationem cave audias; vaco et omnes vacant, qui volunt. Neminem res secuntur. Ipsi illas amplexantur et argumentum esse felicitatis occupationem putant. Quid ergo fuit, quare non protinus rescriberem? Id, de quo quaerebas, veniebat in contextum operis mei.

For you know that I want to take in the whole of moral philosophy and unfold all the questions that belong to it. So I was in doubt whether to put you off until the matter reached its own place, or to grant you a hearing out of turn; it seemed more humane not to keep one waiting who comes from so far.

Scis enim me moralem philosophiam velle conplecti et omnes ad eam pertinentis quaestiones explicare. Itaque dubitavi utrum differrem te, donec suus isti rei veniret locus, an ius tibi extra ordinem dicerem; humanius visum est tam longe venientem non detinere.

So I will pluck this too out of that connected series of topics and, if there are any others of the kind, will send them to you unasked. You ask what these are? Things it is more pleasant to know than profitable — like this you ask about: is the good a body?

Itaque et hoc ex illa serie rerum cohaerentium excerpam et, si qua erunt eiusmodi, non quaerenti tibi ultro mittam. Quae sint haec interrogas? Quae scire magis iuvat quam prodest, sicut hoc, de quo quaeris: bonum an corpus sit?

The good acts: for it profits. What acts is a body. The good stirs the soul and in a way shapes and contains it; and these are the properties of a body. The goods of the body are bodies; therefore so are the goods of the soul.

Bonum facit: prodest enim. Quod facit, corpus est. Bonum agitat animum et quodammodo format et continet, quae propria sunt corporis. Quae corporis bona sunt, corpora sunt; ergo et quae animi sunt.

For this too is a body. The good of a man must be a body, since the man himself is corporeal. I lie, if the things that feed him and those that either guard or restore his health are not bodies; therefore his good too is a body. You will not, I think, doubt whether the passions are bodies — to stuff in something else as well, which you do not ask about — such as anger, love, sorrow; unless you doubt whether they alter our countenance, draw the brow tight, spread the face open, call up a blush, put the blood to flight. What then? Do you believe such plain marks of the body are stamped on us except by a body?

Nam et hoc corpus est. Bonum hominis necesse est corpus sit, cum ipse sit corporalis. Mentior, nisi et quae aiunt illum et quae valitudinem eius vel custodiunt vel restituunt, corpora sunt; ergo et bonum eius corpus est. Non puto te dubitaturum, an adfectus corpora sint—ut aliud quoque, de quo non quaeris, infulciam—tamquam ira, amor, tristitia,nisi dubitas, an vultum nobis mutent, an frontem adstringant, an faciem diffundant, an ruborem evocent, an fugent sanguinem. Quid ergo? Tam manifestas notas corporis credis inprimi nisi a corpore?

If the passions are bodies, so too are the maladies of the soul — like greed, cruelty, vices hardened and brought into an incurable state; therefore wickedness too, and all its kinds, malignity, envy, pride; therefore the goods as well — first because they are contrary to those, and then because they will furnish you the same indications.

Si adfectus corpora sunt, et morbi animorum, ut avaritia, crudelitas, indurata vitia et in statum inemendabilem adducta; ergo et malitia et species eius omnes, malignitas, invidia, superbia; ergo et bona, primum quia contraria istis sunt, deinde quia eadem tibi indicia praestabunt.

Or do you not see how much vigor courage gives the eyes? How much concentration prudence? How much modesty and quiet reverence? How much serenity gladness? How much rigor severity? How much ease mildness? They are bodies, then, that change the color and bearing of bodies, that wield their rule within them. But all the virtues I have listed are goods, and so is whatever comes of them. Is there any doubt whether that by which a thing can be touched is a body?

An non vides, quantum oculis det vigorem fortitudo? Quantam intentionem prudentia? Quantam modestiam et quietem reverentia? Quantam serenitatem laetitia? Quantum rigorem severitas? Quantam remissionem lenitas? Corpora ergo sunt, quae colorem habitumque corporum mutant, quae in illis regnum suum exercent. Omnes autem, quas rettuli, virtutes bona sunt, et quicquid ex illis est. Numquid est dubium, an id, quo quid tangi potest, corpus sit?

For nothing but body can touch or be touched.

Tangere enim et tangi nisi corpus nulla potest res,

Even now, that which has such force as to drive and compel and hold back and check — is a body. What then? Does not fear hold back? Does not boldness drive on? Does not courage launch us and give the charge? Does not moderation rein in and call back? Does not joy lift up? Does not sorrow press down?

Etiam nunc cui tanta vis est, ut inpellat et cogat et retineat et inhibeat, corpus est. Quid ergo? Non timor retinet? Non audacia inpellit? Non fortitudo inmittit et impetum dat? Non moderatio refrcnat refrenat ac revocat? Non gaudium extollit? Non tristitia adducit?

In short, whatever we do, we do at the command of either wickedness or virtue. What commands a body is a body; what brings force to bear on a body is a body. The good of a body is corporeal; the good of a man is also the good of a body; therefore it is corporeal.

Denique quidquid facimus, aut, malitiae aut virtutis gerimus imperio. Quod imperat corpori, corpus est, quod vim corpori adfert, corpus. Bonum corporis corporalest, bonum hominis et corporis bonum est; itaque corporale est.

Since, as you wished, I have humored you, now I myself will say to myself what I see you are about to say: we are playing at draughts. Subtlety is worn away on superfluities; these things make men learned, not good. To be wise is a plainer matter — indeed it is simply better to use letters toward a sound mind; but we, as we spread out everything else into the superfluous, so spread out philosophy itself.

Quoniam, ut voluisti, morem gessi tibi, nunc ipse dicam mihi, quod dicturum esse te video: latrunculis ludimus. In supervacuis subtilitas teritur; non faciunt bonos ista, sed doctos. Apertior res est sapere, immo simpliciter satius est ad mentem bonam uti litteris, sed nos ut cetera in supervacuum diffundimus, ita philosophiam ipsam.

As in all things, so in letters too, we labor under intemperance; we learn not for life but for the schoolroom. Farewell.

Quemadmodum omnium rerum, sic litterarum quoque intemperantia laboramus; non vitae sed scholae discimus. Vale.

Where is that prudence of yours? Where the subtlety in discerning things? Where the greatness of mind? Does so trifling a thing now distress you? Your slaves took your busyness for a chance to run off. If your friends were deceiving you — let them keep, by all means, the name our error has fastened on them, and be called what makes them no more shameful — there would be something lacking in all your affairs; as it is, those are lacking who both wore away your effort and believed you a nuisance to others.

Ubi illa prudentia tua? Ubi in dispiciendis rebus subtilitas? Ubi magnitudo? Iam pusilla te res angit? Servi occupationes tuas occasionem fugae putaverunt. Si amici deciperent—habeant enim sane nomen, quod illis noster error inposuit, et vocentur, quo turpius non sint—omnibus rebus tuis desset aliquid; nunc desunt illi, qui et operam tuam conterebant et te aliis molestum esse credebant.

None of this is unusual, none unexpected. To take offense at such things is as ridiculous as to complain because you are splashed in public or spattered in the mud. The condition of life is the same as that of the bath, the crowd, the road: some things will be flung at you, some will fall on you by chance. Living is no dainty business. You have set out on a long road; you must needs slip and stumble and fall and tire and cry out, “O death!” — that is, lie. In one place you will leave a companion behind, in another bury one, in another fear for one; through offenses of this kind you must measure out this rough journey.

Nihil horum insolitum, nihil inexpectatum est. Offendi rebus istis tam ridiculum est quam queri, quod spargaris in publico aut inquineris in luto. Eadem vitae condicio est, quae balnei, turbae, itineris: quaedam in te mittentur, quaedam incident. Non est delicata res vivere. Longam viam ingressus es; et labaris oportet et arietes et cadas et lasseris et exclames: O mors! id est mentiaris. Alio loco comitem relinques, alio efferes, alio timebis; per eiusmodi offensas emetiendum est confragosum hoc iter.

Grief and avenging Cares have laid their couches there, and pale Diseases dwell, and gloomy Old Age.

Luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia curae Pallentesque habitant morbi tristisque senectus.

Everyone has gone more bravely to meet what he had long composed himself for, and has withstood even hard things if they had been thought through in advance. But the unprepared man, on the contrary, has taken fright at the very lightest. We must work at this: that nothing be unforeseen by us. And because all things weigh heavier through their novelty, constant reflection will see to it that you are a raw recruit to no evil.

Nemo non fortius ad id, cui se diu conposuerat, accessit et duris quoque, si praemeditata erant, obstitit. At contra inparatus etiam levissima expavit. Id agendum est, ne quid nobis inopinatum sit. Et quia omnia novitate graviora sunt, hoc cogitatio adsidua praestabit, ut nulli sis malo tiro.

“My slaves have left me.” Another man they have robbed, another accused, another killed, another betrayed, another trampled, another assailed with poison, another with slander; whatever you name, it has happened to many. Next, the weapons aimed at us are many and various. Some are fixed in us, some are quivering and at this very moment coming, some, on their way to others, graze us.

Servi me reliquerunt. Alium compilaverunt, alium accusaverunt, alium occiderunt, alium prodiderunt, alium calcaverunt, alium veneno, alium criminatione petierunt; quicquid dixeris, multis accidit. Deinceps quae multa et varia sunt, in nos tela deriguntur. Quaedam in nos fixa sunt, quaedam vibrant et cum maxime veniunt, quaedam in alios perventura nos stringunt.

Let us marvel at nothing of those things to which we were born, which no one should therefore complain of, because they are equal for all. Equal, I say; for even what someone has escaped, he could have suffered. And a just law is not one that all have used, but one that has been laid down for all. Let equity be commanded of the soul, and let us pay the tributes of mortality without complaint.

Nihil miremur eorum, ad quae nati sumus, quae ideo nulli querenda, quia paria sunt omnibus. Ita dico, paria sunt; nam etiam quod effugit aliquis, pati potuit. Aequum autem ius est non quo omnes usi sunt, sed quod omnibus latum est. Imperetur aequitas animo et sine querella mortalitatis tributa pendamus.

Winter brings on cold: we must be chilled. Summer brings back heat: we must swelter. The distemper of the sky tries our health: we must fall sick. Somewhere a wild beast will meet us, and a man more ruinous than all beasts. One thing water, another fire will snatch from us. This condition of things we cannot change; this we can: to take up a great spirit, worthy of a good man, and so bravely endure what chance brings and consent to nature.

Hiems frigora adducit: algendum est. Aestas calores refert: aestuandum est. Intemperies caeli valitudinem temptat: aegrotandum est. Et fera nobis aliquo loco occurret et homo perniciosior feris omnibus. Aliud aqua, aliud ignis eripiet. Hanc rerum condicionem mutare non possumus; illud possumus, magnum sumere animum et viro bono dignum, quo fortiter fortuita patiamur et naturae consentiamus.

Nature, moreover, tempers this kingdom you see by changes: clear skies follow cloud; seas are stirred up when they have grown calm; the winds blow in turn; day follows night; one part of the sky rises, another sinks. By contraries the eternity of things holds together.

Natura autem hoc, quod vides, regnum mutationibus temperat; nubilo serena succedunt; turbantur maria, cum quieverunt; fiant in vicem venti; noctem dies sequitur; pars caeli consurgit, pars mergitur. Contrariis rerum aeternitas constat.

To this law our soul must be fitted; this let it follow, this obey. And whatever happens, let it think it had to happen, and not wish to upbraid nature. It is best to endure what you cannot mend, and to attend without murmur upon the god by whose authorship all things come about: a bad soldier is he who follows his general groaning.

Ad hanc legem animus noster aptandus est; hanc sequatur, huic pareat. Et quaecumque fiunt, debuisse fieri putet nec velit obiurgare naturam. Optimum est pati, quod emendare non possis, et deum, quo auctore cuncta proveniunt, sine murmuratione comitari; malus miles est qui imperatorem gemens sequitur.

Therefore let us, brisk and eager, take up our orders, and not desert this course of a most beautiful work, into which whatever we shall suffer is woven. And let us so address Jupiter, by whose steering this great mass is guided, as our Cleanthes addresses him in most eloquent verses — which I am allowed to turn into our own tongue by the example of Cicero, that most eloquent man. If they please you, take them in good part; if they displease, you will know that in this too I have followed Cicero’s example:

Quare inpigri atque alacres excipiamus imperia nec deseramus hunc operis pulcherrimi cursum, cui quidquid patiemur, intextum est. Et sic adloquamur Iovem, cuius gubernaculo moles ista derigitur, quemadmodum Cleanthes noster versibus disertissimis adloquitur, quos mihi in nostrum sermonem mutare permittitur Ciceronis, disertissimi viri, exemplo. Si placuerint, boni consules; si displicuerint, scies me in hoc secutum Ciceronis exemplum:

Lead, O Father and lord of the lofty pole, wherever you please; there is no delay in obeying. Here I am, unflagging. Suppose I will not: I shall follow groaning, and suffer, base, what I might have done as a good man. The fates lead the willing; the unwilling they drag.

Duc, o parens celsique dominator poli, Quocumque placuit; nulla parendi mora est. Adsum inpiger. Fac nolle, comitabor gemens Maiusque patiar, facere quod licuit bono. Ducunt volentem fata, nolentem trahunt.

So let us live, so let us speak; let fate find us ready and unflagging. This is the great soul, that has handed itself over to fate; the puny and degenerate one, on the contrary, struggles against it, thinks ill of the order of the world, and would rather mend the gods than itself. Farewell.

Sic vivamus, sic loquamur; paratos nos inveniat atque inpigros fatum. Hic est magnus animus, qui se ei tradidit; at contra ille pusillus et degener, qui obluctatur et de ordine mundi male existimat et emendare mavult deos quam se. Vale.

What you ask about is one of those things which it concerns you to know only that you may know it. But none the less, because it concerns you, you are in a hurry and unwilling to wait for the books which at this very moment I am putting in order, covering the whole moral part of philosophy. I will deal with it at once; yet I will first write how this craving to learn, with which I see you ablaze, should be portioned out, lest it get in its own way.

Id, de quo quaeris, ex his est, quae scire tantum eo, ut scias, pertinet. Sed nihilominus, quia pertinet, properas nec vis exspectare libros, quos cum maxime ordino continentes totam moralem philosophiae partem. Statim expediam, illud tamen prius scribam, quemadmodum tibi ista cupiditas discendi, qua flagrare te video, digerenda sit, ne ipsa se inpediat.

Things are not to be plucked here and there, nor the whole field invaded greedily; through the parts one arrives at the whole. The load must be fitted to one’s strength, and no more taken on than we can be equal to. Not as much as you wish, but as much as you can hold, is to be drunk in. Only keep a good spirit; you will hold as much as you wish. The more the mind takes in, the more it stretches itself.

Nec passim carpenda sunt nec avide invadenda universa; per partes pervenietur ad totum. Aptari onus viribus debet nec plus occupari quam cui sufficere possimus. Non quantum vis, sed quantum capis, hauriendum est. Bonum tantum habe animum; capies quantum voles. Quo plus recipit animus, hoc se magis laxat.

These, I recall, were the precepts Attalus gave us, when we laid siege to his lecture-room, came first and left last, and would call him out, even as he walked, to some discussion — for he was not merely ready for his learners but came to meet them. “The same aim,” he said, “ought to belong to teacher and learner alike: that the one wish to do good, the other to make progress.”

Haec nobis praecipere Attalum memini, cum scholam eius opsideremus et primi veniremus et novissimi exiremus, ambulantem quoque illum ad aliquas disputationes evocaremus, non tantum paratum discentibus, sed obvium. Idem, inquit, et docenti et discenti debet esse propositum: ut ille prodesse velit, hic proficere.

Whoever comes to a philosopher, let him carry off some good with him each day: let him go home either sounder or more curable. And go home so he will; such is the power of philosophy that it helps not only those who study but even those who keep its company. He who comes into the sun, though he came not for that, will be tanned; those who have sat in a perfumer’s shop and lingered a little carry the scent of the place away with them; and those who have been with a philosopher must needs draw off something that would profit even the careless. Mark what I say: the careless, not the resistant.

Qui ad philosophum venit, cotidie aliquid secum boni ferat: aut sanior domum redeat aut sanabilior. Redibit autem; ea philosophiae vis est, ut non studentes, sed etiam conversantes iuvet. Qui in solem venit, licet non in hoc venerit, colorabitur; qui in unguentaria taberna resederunt et paullo diutius commorati sunt, odorem secum loci ferunt. Et qui ad philosophum fuerunt, traxerint aliquid necesse est, quod prodesset etiam neglegentibus. Attende, quid dicam: neglegentibus, non repugnantibus.

What then? Do we not know certain men who have sat many years with a philosopher and not even taken on his color? Why should I not know them? Most persistent and assiduous men, whom I call not the disciples of philosophers but their lodgers.

Quid ergo? Non novimus quosdam, qui multis apud philosophum annis persederint et ne colorem quidem duxerint? Quidni noverim? Pertinacissimos quidem et adsiduos, quos ego non discipulos philosophorum, sed inquilinos voco.

Some come to hear, not to learn, as we are led to the theatre for pleasure’s sake, to delight the ears with a speech or a voice or a play. You will see that a great part of the audience is one to whom the philosopher’s school is a hostelry of leisure. They are not there to lay aside some vices, or to receive some law of life by which to set their conduct straight, but to enjoy to the full the indulgence of the ears. Some, even, come with notebooks — not to catch the matter but the words, which they speak with as little profit to others as they hear them with to themselves. Some are roused by grand utterances and pass over into the feeling of the speakers, brisk in face and spirit, stirred no otherwise than eunuchs are wont to be by the sound of the Phrygian flute-player, raving at command. It is the beauty of the things that carries them off and goads them, not the sound of empty words. If anything has been said sharply against death, anything defiantly against fortune, it gives delight at once to do what one hears. They are moved by it and become such as they are bidden — if only that shape stays in the mind, if the crowd, that dissuader from the honorable, does not at once cut off the notable impulse; few have been able to carry home the mind they had conceived.

Quidam veniunt ut audiant, non ut discant, sicut in theatrum voluptatis causa ad delectandas aures oratione vel voce vel fabulis ducimur. Magnam hanc auditorum partem videbis, cui philosophi schola deversorium otii sit. Non id agunt, ut aliqua illo vitia deponant, ut aliquam legem vitae accipiant, qua mores suos exigant, sed ut oblectamento aurium perfruantur. Aliqui tamen et cum pugillaribus veniunt, non ut res excipiant, sed ut verba, quae tam sine profectu alieno dicant quam sine suo audiunt. Quidam ad magnificas voces excitantur et transeunt in adfectum dicentium alacres vultu et animo, nec aliter concitantur quam solent Phrygii tibicinis sono semiviri et ex imperio furentes. Rapit illos instigatque rerum pulchritudo, non verborum inanium sonitus. Si quid acriter contra mortem dictum est, si quid contra fortunam contumaciter, iuvat protinus quae audias, facere. Adficiuntur illis et sunt quales iubentur, si illa animo forma permaneat, si non impetum insignem protinus populus, honesti dissuasor, excipiat; pauci illam, quam conceperant mentem, domum perferre pofuerunt potuerunt.

It is easy to rouse a hearer to the desire of the right; for nature has given everyone the foundations and the seed of the virtues. We are all born for all these things; when a prompter comes near, then that good in the soul is wakened, as if set free. Do you not see how the theatres ring out together, whenever things are said that we publicly acknowledge and by common consent attest to be true?

Facile est auditorem concitare ad cupidinem recti; omnibus enim natura fundamenta dedit semenque virtutum. Omnes ad omnia ista nati sumus; cum inritator accessit, tunc illa anima bona veluti soluta excitatur. Non vides, quemadmodum theatra consonent, quotiens aliqua dicta sunt, quae publice adgnoscimus et consensu vera esse testamur?

Want lacks much; greed, everything. To no one is the greedy man good; to himself he is the worst of all.

Desunt inopiae multa, avaritiae omnia. In nullum avarus bonus est, in se pessimus.

For, as Cleanthes used to say, just as our breath gives back a clearer sound when the trumpet, drawing it through the narrows of a long channel, pours it out at last by a wider opening, so the close constraint of verse makes our meanings clearer. The same things are heard more carelessly and strike less hard, as long as they are spoken in loose prose; once rhythms have come in and fixed feet have bound up an excellent meaning, that same sentence is hurled, as it were, by a more vigorous arm.

Nam, ut dicebat Cleanthes, quemadmodum spiritus noster clariorem sonum reddit, cum illum tuba per longi canalis angustias tractum patentiore novissime exitu effudit, sic sensus nostros clariores carminis arta necessitas efficit. Eadem neglcgentius neglegentius audiuntur minusque percutiunt, quamdiu soluta oratione dicuntur; ubi accessere numeri et egregium sensum adstrinxere certi pedes, eadem illa sententia velut lacerto excussiore torquetur.

That mortal needs least who craves least. He has what he wants who can want what is enough.

Is minimo eget mortalis, qui minimum cupit. Quod vult habet, qui velle quod satis est potest.

When we hear these and the like, we are brought to a confession of the truth. For even those for whom nothing is enough marvel, applaud, and declare war on money. When you have seen this feeling in them, press it, drive at it, load it — leaving aside the ambiguities and syllogisms and quibbles and the rest of the playthings of idle cleverness. Speak against greed, speak against luxury; when you have seen that you are making headway and have stirred the souls of your hearers, push on the harder; it is past belief how much such a discourse profits when it is aimed at remedy and turned wholly to the hearers’ good. For tender natures are most easily won over to the love of the honorable and the right, and on those still teachable and only lightly corrupted truth lays her hand, if she has found a fit advocate.

Cum haec atque eiusmodi audimus, ad confessionem veritatis adducimur. Illi enim, quibus nihil satis est, admirantur, adclamant, odium pecuniae indicunt. Hunc illorum adfectum cum videris, urge, hoc preme, hoc onera relictis ambiguitatibus et syllogismis et cavillationibus et ceteris acuminis inriti ludicris. Dic in avaritiam, dic in luxuriam; cum profecisse te videris et animos audientium adfeceris, insta vehementius; veri simile non^est, quantum proficiat talis oratio remedio intenta et tota in bonum audientium versa. Facillime enim tenera conciliantur ingenia ad honesti rectique amorem et adhuc docibilibus leviterque corruptis inicit manum veritas, si advocatum idoneum nancta est.

I at least, when I heard Attalus declaiming against the vices, against errors, against the evils of life, often pitied the human race and believed him sublime, higher than the summit of man. He called himself a king; but he seemed to me to do more than reign, since he was free to pass censor’s judgment on those who reign.

Ego certe cum Attalum audirem in vitia, in errores, in mala vitae perorantem, saepe miseritus sum generis humani et illum sublimem altioremque humano fastigio credidi. Ipse regem se esse dicebat, sed plus quam regnare mihi videbatur, cui liceret censuram agere regnantium.

But when he had begun to commend poverty and to show how whatever exceeds use is a superfluous weight, heavy for the bearer, it often pleased me to leave the school a poor man. When he had begun to lead our pleasures in triumph, to praise a chaste body, a sober table, a mind pure not only of forbidden pleasures but of superfluous ones, it was a pleasure to set bounds to gullet and belly.

Cum vero commendare paupertatem coeperat et ostendere, quam quidquid usum excederet, pondus esset supervacuum et grave ferenti, saepe exire e schola pauperi libuit. Cum coeperat voluptates nostras traducere, laudare castum corpus, sobriam mensam, puram mentem non tantum ab inlicitis voluptatibus, sed etiam supervacuis, libebat circumscribere gulam ac ventrem.

From this, Lucilius, certain things have stayed with me. For I had come to it all with a great onset. Then, brought back to the life of the city, I kept few of my good beginnings. Hence my renouncing of oysters and mushrooms for my whole life; for they are not food but relishes that compel the full to eat — the dearest thing to gluttons and to those who stuff themselves beyond their capacity — easy to send down, easy to bring back up.

Inde mihi quaedam permansere, Lucili. Magno enim in omnia inceptu veneram. Deinde ad civitatis vitam reductus ex bene coeptis pauca servavi. Inde ostreis boletisque in omnem vitam renuntiatum est; nec enim cibi, sed oblectamenta sunt ad edendum saturos cogentia, quod gratissimum est edacibus et se ultra quam capiunt farcientibus, facile descensura, facile reditura.

Hence my abstaining from perfume for my whole life, since the best scent in a body is none. Hence a stomach with no wine. Hence my shunning of the bath for my whole life: I have held that to boil the body down and drain it with sweats is at once useless and self-indulgent. The other renunciations have lapsed and come back, yet in such a way that, of those whose abstinence I have broken off, I keep a measure — one nearer indeed to abstinence, and perhaps harder, since some things are more easily cut away from the soul than tempered in it.

Inde in omnem vitam unguento abstinemus, quoniam optimus odor in corpore est nullus. Inde vino carens stomachus. Inde in omnem vitam balneum fugimus, decoquere corpus atque exinanire sudoribus inutile simul delicatumque credidimus. Cetera proiecta redierunt, ita tamen, ut quorum abstinentiam interrupi, modum servem et quidem abstinentiae proximiorem, nescio an difficiliorem, quoniam quaedam absciduntur facilius animo quam temperantur.

Since I have begun to set out for you with how much greater an onset I came to philosophy as a young man than I press on with it as an old one, I will not be ashamed to confess what love Pythagoras instilled in me. Sotion used to tell why Pythagoras abstained from living creatures, and why afterward Sextius did. The reason was different for each, but for each it was magnificent.

Quoniam coepi tibi exponere, quanto maiore impetu ad philosophiam iuvenis accesserim quam senex pergam, non pudebit fateri, quem mihi amorem Pythagoras iniecerit. Sotion dicebat, quare ille animalibus abstinuisset, quare postea Sextius. Dissimilis utrique causa erat, sed utrique magnifica.

Sextius believed that man had nourishment enough without blood, and that a habit of cruelty is formed once the mangling of flesh has been brought over into a pleasure. He added that the stuff of luxury must be cut back; he reasoned that varied foods are contrary to good health and foreign to our bodies.

Hic homini satis alimentorum citra sanguinem esse credebat et crudelitatis consuetudinem fieri, ubi in voluptatem esset adducta laceratio. Adiciebat contrahendam materiam esse luxuriae; colligebat bonae valitudini contraria esse alimenta varia et nostris aliena corporibus.

But Pythagoras said there was a kinship of all with all, and an interchange of souls passing into one shape and another. No soul, if you believe him, perishes, or even ceases, save for a brief time while it is poured over into another body. We shall see through what cycles of time, and when, having strayed through several lodgings, it returns into a man; meanwhile he put into men a fear of crime and of parricide, since they might, all unknowing, run upon a parent’s soul and violate it with steel or tooth, if some kindred spirit were lodged within the creature.

At Pythagoras omnium inter omnia cognationem esse dicebat et animorum commercium in alias atque alias formas transeuntium. Nulla, si illi credas, anima interit, ne cessat quidem nisi tempore exiguo, dum in aliud corpus transfunditur. videbimus, per quas temporum vices et quando pererratis pluribus domiciliis in hominem revertatur; interim sceleris hominibus ac parricidii metum fecit, cum possent in parentis animam,inscii incurrere et ferro morsuve violare, si in quo cognatus aliqui spiritus hospitaretur.

When Sotion had set this out and filled it with his arguments, “Do you not believe,” he said, “that souls are parcelled out into one body after another, and that what we call death is a migration? Do you not believe that in these cattle or beasts, or in things sunk in water, there lingers the soul that was once a man’s? Do you not believe that nothing perishes in this world, but only changes its region — that not only the heavenly bodies turn through fixed circuits, but living things too go by turns, and souls are driven round in a cycle? Great men have believed these things.”

Haec cum exposuisset Sotion et inplesset argumentis suis, Non credis, inquit, animas in alia corpora atque alia discribi et migrationem esse quod dicimus mortem? Non credis in his pecudibus ferisve aut aqua mersis illum quondam hominis animum morari? Non credis nihil perire in hoc mundo, sed mutare regionem? Nec tantum caelestia per certos circuitus verti, sed animalia quoque per vices ire et animos per orbem agi? Magni ista crediderunt viri.

So hold your judgment in suspense, but keep everything open for yourself. If these things are true, to have abstained from living creatures is innocence; if false, it is frugality. What loss is it to your credulity? I am taking from you the food of lions and vultures.

Itaque iudicium quidem tuum sustine, ceterum omnia tibi in integro serva. Si vera sunt ista, abstinuisse animalibus innocentia est; si falsa, frugalitas est. Quod istic credulitatis tuae damnum est? Alimenta tibi leonum et vulturum eripio.

Stirred by these arguments, I began to abstain from living creatures, and when a year had passed the habit was not only easy for me but sweet. I believed my mind was more active, and I would not affirm to you today whether it was. You ask how I left off? The season of my youth had fallen in the early principate of Tiberius Caesar. Foreign rites were then being driven out, and among the proofs of superstition was reckoned abstinence from certain animals. So at my father’s asking — who did not fear the slander, but hated philosophy — I returned to my former habit. And he persuaded me without difficulty to begin dining better.

His ego instinctus abstinere animalibus coepi, et anno peracto non tantum facilis erat mihi consuetudo, sed dulcis. Agitatiorem mihi animum esse credebam, nec tibi hodie adfirmaverim, an fuerit. Quaeris, quomodo desierim? In primum Tiberii Caesaris principatum iuventae tempus inciderat. Alienigena tum sacra movebantur, sed inter argumenta superstitionis ponebatur quorundam animalium abstinentia. Patre itaque meo rogante, qui non calumniam timebat, sed philosophiam oderat, ad pristinam consuetudinem redii. Nec difficulter mihi, ut inciperem melius cenare, persuasit.

Attalus used to praise a mattress that resists the body; even as an old man I use such a one, on which no imprint can show. I have told these things to prove to you how vehement are the first impulses of beginners toward all the best things, if someone exhorts them, if someone sets them alight. But something is sinned through the fault of teachers, who teach us to dispute, not to live; something through the fault of learners, who bring to their teachers a purpose not of cultivating the soul but the wits. And so what was philosophy has been made philology.

Laudare solebat Attalus culcitam, quae resisteret corpori; tali utor etiam senex, in qua vestigium apparere non possit. Haec rettuli ut probarem tibi, quam vehementes haberent tirunculi impetus primos ad optima quaeque, si quis exhortaretur illos, si quis incenderet. Sed aliquid praecipientium vitio peccatur, qui nos docent disputare, non vivere, aliquid discentium, qui propositum adferunt ad praeceptores suos non animum excolendi, sed ingenium. Itaque quae philosophia fuit, facta philologia est.

and meanwhile it flees — time flees, beyond recovery: Each best day of life flees first for wretched mortals; on come diseases and sad old age, and toil, and the cruelty of hard death snatches them away.

fugit inreparabile tempus: Optima quaeque dies miseris mortalibus aevi Prima fugit; subeunt morbi tristisque senectus Et labor, et durae rapit inclementia mortis.

He who looks toward philosophy draws these same lines to where they ought to go: “Never,” he says, “does Virgil say that the days ‘go,’ but that they ‘flee,’ which is the swiftest kind of running, and that the best are snatched away first; why then do we delay to rouse ourselves, so as to match the speed of the swiftest of things? The better flies past, the worse comes up behind.”

Ille, qui ad philosophiam spectat, haec eadem quo debet, adducit: numquam vergilius, inquit, dies dicit ire, sed fugere, quod currendi genus concitatissimum est, et optimos quosque primos rapi; quid ergo cessamus nos ipsi concitare, ut velocitatem rapidissimae rei possimus aequare? Meliora praetervolant, deteriora succedunt.

Each best day of life flees first for wretched mortals.

Optima quaeque dies miseris mortalibus aevi Prima fugit.

Why the best? Because what remains is uncertain. Why the best? Because as young men we can learn, can turn the mind, still supple and tractable, toward better things; because this season is fit for labors, fit for minds to be exercised through studies and bodies through works; what is left is more sluggish and languid and nearer the end. So let us go at this with our whole soul, and, leaving aside the things to which we are diverted, labor at the one thing, lest we grasp the speed of this most fleeting of things only when we are left behind. Let each first day please us as the best and be redeemed into our own keeping.

Quare optima? Quia quod restat, incertum est. Quare optima? Quia iuvenes possumus discere, possumus facilem animum et adhuc tractabilem ad meliora convertere; quia hoc tempus idoneum est laboribus, idoneum agitandis per studia ingeniis et exercendis per opera corporibus; quod superest, segnius et languidius est et propius a fine. Itaque toto hoc agamus animo et omissis, ad quae devertimur, in rem unam laboremus, ne hanc temporis pernicissimi celeritatem, quam retinere non possumus, relicti demum intellegamus. Primus quisque tamquam optimus dies placeat et redigatur in nostrum.

What flees must be seized. He does not think of this who reads that verse with a grammarian’s eyes — that each best day is first precisely because diseases come on, because old age presses and stands over the head even of those still dreaming of their youth; but he says that Virgil always sets diseases and old age together, and not, by Hercules, undeservedly. For old age is an incurable disease.

Quod fugit, occupandum est. Haec non cogitat ille, qui grammatici oculis carmen istud legit, ideo optimum quemque primum esse diem, quia subeunt morbi, quia senectus premit et adhuc adulescentiam cogitantibus supra caput est; sed ait Vergilium semper una ponere morbos et senectutem, non mehercules immerito. Senectus enim insanabilis morbus est.

on come diseases and sad old age. and pale Diseases dwell, and sad Old Age.

subeunt morbi tristisque senectus. Pallentesque habitant morbi tristisque senectus.

When some philologist takes up Cicero’s book On the Republic from this side, a grammarian from that, a man given to philosophy from another, each sends his attention off in a different direction. The philosopher marvels that so much could be said against justice. When the philologist comes to this same reading, he notes this down: that there were two Roman kings, of whom one had no father, the other no mother. For about Servius’s mother there is doubt; Ancus has no father named, and is called the grandson of Numa.

Cum Ciceronis librum de Re Publica prendit hinc philologus aliquis,hinc grammaticus, hinc philosophiae deditus, alius alio curam suam mittit. Philosophus admiratur contra iustitiam dici tam multa potuisse. Cum ad hanc eandem lectionem philologus accessit, hoc subnotat: Duos Romanos reges esse, quorum alter patrem non habet, alter matrem. Nam de Servi matre dubitatur; Anci pater nullus, Numae nepotis, dicitur.

Besides, he notes that the man we call dictator, and read so named in the histories, was among the ancients called the master of the people. To this day it stands so in the augural books, and the proof is that the one he names is the “master of horse.” Likewise he notes that Romulus perished in an eclipse of the sun; that there was an appeal to the people even from the kings — that this stands so in the pontifical books, as others also think, and Fenestella among them.

Praeterea notat eum, quem nos dictatorem dicimus et in historiis ita nominari legimus, aput antiquos magistrum populi vocatum. Hodieque id extat in auguralibus libris, et testimonium est, quod qui ab illo nominatur, magister equitum est. Aeque notat Romulum perisse solis defectione; provocationem ad populum etiam a regibus fuisse; id ita in pontificalibus libris esse et alii quiqui putant et Fenestella.

When a grammarian unrolls these same books, first he sets down in his commentary that Cicero says reapse, that is re ipsa (“in the thing itself”), and no less sepse, that is se ipse (“himself”). Then he passes to the things that the usage of the age has changed — as where Cicero says: “since by his interruption we have been called back from the very calx.” This thing which we now call creta (“chalk”) in the circus, the ancients called calx (the finish-line).

Eosdem libros cum grammaticus explicuit, primum verba expressa, reapse dici a Cicerone, id est re ipsa, in commentarium refert, nec minus sepse, id est se ipse. Deinde transit ad ea, quae consuetudo saeculi mutavit, tamquam ait Cicero: quoniam sumus ab ipsa calce eius interpellatione revocati. Hanc quam nunc in circo cretam vocamus, calcem antiqui dicebant.

to whom no one, citizen or foe, will be able to render the recompense of his deeds.

cui nemo civis neque hostis Quibit pro factis reddere opis pretium.

over whom the vast gate of heaven thunders. If it is right for any man to climb into the quarters of the gods, for me alone the great gate of heaven lies open.

quem super ingens porta tonat caeli. Si fas endo plagas caelestum ascendere cuiquam est, Mi soli caeli maxima porta patet.

But lest I too, while doing one thing, slip into a philologist or grammarian, this I urge: that the hearing and the reading of philosophers be drawn toward the aim of the happy life — not that we hunt for archaic or coined words and unfit metaphors and figures of speech, but for precepts that will profit and for utterances grand and full of spirit that may soon be carried over into action. Let us learn them by heart in such a way that what were words become deeds.

Sed ne et ipse, dum aliud ago, in philologum aut grammaticum delabar, illud admoneo, auditionem philosophorum lectionemque ad propositum beatae vitae trahendam, non ut verba prisca aut ficta captemus et translationes inprobas figurasque dicendi, sed ut profutura praecepta et magnificas voces et animosas, quae mox in rem transferantur. Sic ista ediscamus, ut quae fuerint verba, sint opera.

I judge that none deserve worse of all mortals than those who have learned philosophy as if it were some saleable craft, who live otherwise than they prescribe one ought to live. For they carry themselves about as examples of a useless discipline, in thrall to every vice they denounce.

Nullos autem peius mereri de omnibus mortalibus iudico quam qui philosophiam velut aliquod artificium venale didicerunt, qui aliter vivunt quam vivendum esse praecipiunt. Exempla enim se ipsos inutilis disciplinae circumferunt nulli non vitio, quod insequuntur, obnoxii.

No such teacher can profit me any more than a helmsman seasick in a storm. The tiller must be held when the wave is snatching it, one must wrestle with the sea itself, the sails must be wrenched from the wind; what can the master of the ship help me if he is thunderstruck and vomiting? By how much greater a storm, do you think, is life tossed than any vessel? One must not talk, but steer.

Non magis mihi potest quisquam talis prodesse praeceptor quam gubernator in tempestate nauseabundus. Tenendum rapiente fluctu gubernaculum, luctandum cum ipso mari, eripienda sunt vento vela; quid me potest adiuvare rector navigii attonitus et vomitans? Quanto maiore putas vitam tempestate iactari quam ullam ratem? Non est loquendum, sed gubernandum.

All the things they say, all they toss out with the crowd listening, are another’s: Plato said it, Zeno said it, Chrysippus and Posidonius and a vast column of our own, so many and so great. How they may prove these things to be their own, I will show: let them do what they have said.

Omnia quae dicunt, quae turba audiente iactant, aliena sunt; dixit illa Platon, dixit Zenon, dixit Chrysippus et Posidonius et ingens agmen nostrorum tot ac talium. Quomodo probare possint sua esse, monstrabo: faciant, quae dixerint.

Since I have now said what I wished to convey to you, I will satisfy your desire and carry over whole into another letter the thing you had demanded, lest you come to it weary — a thorny matter, to be heard with ears erect and curious. Farewell.

Quoniam quae volueram ad te perferre, iam dixi, nunc desiderio tuo satis faciam et in alteram epistulam integrum, quod exegeras, transferam, ne ad rem spinosam et auribus erectis curiosisque audiendam lassus accedas. Vale.

Whether the wise man profits the wise man — you wish to know. We say the wise man is full of every good and has reached the summit; how, then, anyone can profit one who has the highest good is the question. Good men profit one another; for they exercise the virtues and keep wisdom in its place. Each needs someone with whom to compare, with whom to inquire.

An sapiens sapienti prosit scire desideras. Dicimus plenum omni bono esse sapientem et summa adeptum; quomodo prodesse aliqui possit summum habenti bonum, quaeritur. Prosunt inter se boni; exercent enim virtutes et sapientiam in suo statu continent. Desiderat uterque aliquem, cum quo conferat, cum quo quaerat.

Practice keeps in trim those skilled in wrestling; a musician who has learned its matched pairs is set in motion by another. The wise man too needs the stirring of his virtues: so, just as he moves himself, he is moved by another wise man.

Peritos luctandi usus exercet; musicum, qui paria didicit, movet. Opus est et sapienti agitatione virtutum: ita quemadmodum ipse se movet, sic movetur ab alio sapiente.

How will the wise man profit the wise man? He will give him impulse, will point out occasions for honorable deeds. Besides this, he will express some of his own thoughts: he will teach what he has found out. For there will always remain, even for a wise man, something to find and somewhere for his mind to run out to.

Quid sapiens sapienti proderit? Impetum illi dabit, occasiones actionum honestarum commonstrabit. Praeter haec aliquas cogitationes suas exprimet: docebit, quae invenerit. Semper enim etiam a sapiente restabit, quod inveniat et quo animus eius excurrat.

A bad man harms a bad man and makes him worse, by inciting his anger, assenting to his sorrow, praising his pleasures; and the wicked labor most when they have most mixed their vices together and depravity has been gathered into one. Therefore, by the contrary, a good man will profit a good man. “How?” you say.

Malus malo nocet facitque peiorem, iram eius incitando, tristitiae adsentiendo, voluptates laudando, et tunc maxime laborant mali, ubi plurimum vitia miscuere, et in unum conlata nequitia est. Ergo ex contrario bonus bono proderit. Quomodo? inquis.

He will bring him joy, will strengthen his confidence; from the sight of their mutual tranquillity the gladness of each will grow. Besides, he will hand on to him the knowledge of certain things; for the wise man does not know everything. And even if he knew them, someone might think out shorter roads to things and point out these, by which the whole work is more easily carried through.

Gaudium illi adferet, fiduciam confirmabit, ex conspectu mutuae tranquillitatis crescet utriusque laetitia. Praeterea quarumdam illi rerum scientiam tradet; non enim omnia sapiens scit. Etiam si sciret, breviores vias rerum aliqui excogitare posset et has indicare, per quas facilius totum opus circumfertur.

A wise man will profit a wise man — not, of course, only by his own strength, but by that of the very man he helps. He can indeed, even left to himself, work out his own parts; nonetheless an encourager helps even the runner. “The wise man does not profit the wise man, but each himself.” Know this: take away his own proper force, and he will do nothing.

Proderit sapienti sapiens, non scilicet tantum suis viribus, sed ipsius, quem adiuvat. Potest quidem ille etiam relictus sibi explicare partes suas; nihilominus adiuvat etiam currentem hortator. Non prodest sapienti sapiens, sed sibi ipse. Hoc scias: detrahe illi vim propriam, et ille nihil aget.

In that way you might say there is no sweetness in honey: for the very man who is to eat it has tongue and palate so fitted to a taste of that kind that this flavor pleases him — or he will be put off. For there are some to whom, through the fault of disease, honey seems bitter. Both must be in health, that the one may be able to profit, and the other be fit material for the one who will profit him.

Illo modo dicas licet non esse in melle dulcedinem: nam ipse ille, qui esse debeat, ita aptatus lingua palatoque est ad eiusmodi gustum, ut illa talis sapor capiat, aut offendetur. Sunt enim quidam, quibus morbi vitio mel amarum videatur. Oportet utrumque valere, ut et ille prodesse possit et hic profuturo idonea materia sit.

“If,” he says, “it is superfluous to heat what has been brought to the highest heat, then it is superfluous to do good to one brought to the highest good. Does a farmer furnished with everything seek to be furnished by another? Does an armed soldier, who has safety enough for one going out to the battle-line, want more arms? Then neither does the wise man; for he is sufficiently furnished for life, sufficiently armed.”

Si in summum, inquit, perducto calorem calefieri supervacuum est, et in summum perducto bonum supervacuum est si qui prosit. Numquid instructus omnibus rebus agricola ab alio instrui quaerit? Numquid armatus miles, quantum in aciem exituro satis est tuti, amplius arma desiderat? Ergo nec sapiens; satis enim vitae instructus, satis armatus est.

To this I answer: even one at the highest heat needs heat added, to keep that highest. “But,” he says, “heat keeps itself.” First, there is much difference between the things you compare; for heat is one thing, but to profit is many things. Then heat is not helped to be hot by the addition of heat; the wise man cannot stand fast in the disposition of his mind unless he has admitted some friends like himself, with whom to share his virtues.

Ad haec respondeo: et qui in summo est calore, opus est calore adiecto, ut summum teneat. Sed ipse se, inquit, calor continet. Primum multum interest inter ista, quae comparas; calor enim unus est, prodesse varium est. Deinde calor non adiuvatur adiectione caloris, ut caleat; sapiens non potest in habitu mentis suae stare, nisi amicos aliquos similes sui admisit, cum quibus virtutes suas communicet.

Add now that there is a friendship among all the virtues with one another. And so he profits who loves the virtues of some equal of his and offers his own to be loved in return. Like things delight; above all where they are honorable and know how to approve and to be approved.

Adice nunc, quod omnibus inter se virtutibus amicitia est. Itaque prodest, qui virtutes alicuius paris sui amat amandasque invicem praestat. Similia delectant; utique ubi honesta sunt et probare ac probari sciunt.

Even so, none but a wise man can skillfully move the soul of a wise man, just as none but a man can move a man rationally. As, then, to move reason there is need of reason, so that perfected reason be moved there is need of perfected reason.

Etiamnunc sapientis animum perite movere nemo alius potest quam sapiens, sicut hominem movere rationaliter non potest nisi homo. Quomodo ergo ad rationem movendam ratione opus est, sic ut moveatur ratio perfecta, opus est ratione perfecta.

Those too are said to profit who lavish on us the middle things — money, favor, safety, and the rest that are dear or necessary for the uses of life. In these even a fool will be said to profit a wise man. But to profit is to move the soul according to nature by one’s own virtue and that of him who is to be moved. This will not happen without a good to the very man who does the profiting. For of necessity, by exercising another’s virtue, he exercises his own.

Prodesse dicuntur et qui media nobis largiuntur, pecuniam, gratiam, incolumitatem, alia in usus vitae cara aut necessaria. In his dicetur etiam stultus prodesse sapienti. Prodesse autem est animum secundum naturam movere virtute sua ut eius, qui movebitur. Hoc non sine ipsius quoque, qui proderit, bono fiet. Necesse enim alienam virtutem exercendo exerceat et suam.

But even if you take away those things which are either the highest goods or the producers of the highest, none the less the wise can profit one another. For a wise man’s finding a wise man is a thing to be sought for its own sake, since by nature every good is dear to the good, and each man is bound to a good man as to himself.

Sed ut removeas ista, quae aut summa bona sunt aut summorum efficientia, nihilominus prodesse inter se sapientes possunt. Invenire enim sapientem sapienti per se res expetenda est, quia natura bonum omne carum est bono et sic quisque conciliatur bono quemadmodum sibi.

From this question I must, for the argument’s sake, pass into another. For it is asked whether the wise man will deliberate, whether he will call anyone into council. This he must do when it comes to these civil and domestic matters and, so to speak, mortal ones. In these he needs another’s counsel as he needs a doctor, a helmsman, an advocate and arranger of a lawsuit. So the wise man will sometimes profit the wise man, for he will give advice. But in those great and divine matters too, as we said, he will be useful by treating the honorable in common and mingling minds and thoughts.

Necesse est ex hac quaestione argumenti causa in alteram transeam. Quaeritur enim, an deliberaturus sit sapiens, an in consilium aliquem advocaturus. Quod facere illi necessarium est, cum ad haec civilia et domestica venitur et, ut ita dicam, mortalia. In his sic illi opus est alieno consilio quomodo medico, quomodo gubernatori, quomodo advocato et litis ordinatori. Proderit ergo sapiens aliquando sapienti, suadebit enim. Sed in illis quoque magnis ac divinis, ut diximus, communiter honesta tractando et animos cogitationesque miscendo utilis erit.

Besides, it is according to nature both to embrace friends and to rejoice in a friend’s increase as in one’s own. For unless we do this, not even virtue will stay with us, which keeps its strength by exercising its perception; and virtue counsels us to lay out the present well, to take thought for the future, to deliberate and bend the mind to its task; he will more easily bend and unfold it who has taken someone to himself. So he will seek either a perfected man or one making progress and near to the perfected. And that perfected man will profit him, if he aids the counsel with shared prudence.

Praeterea secundum naturam est et amicos complecti et amicorum auctu ut suo proprioque laetari. Nam nisi hoc fecerimus, ne virtus quidem nobis permanebit, quae exercendo sensu valet, virtus autem suadet praesentia bene conlocare, in futurum consulere, deliberare et intendere animum; facilius intendet explicabitque qui aliquem sibi adsumpserit. Quaeret itaque aut perfectum virum aut proficientem vicinumque perfecto. Proderit autem ille perfectus, si consilium communi prudentia iuverit.

Men say they see more in another’s business; this befalls, as a fault, those whom self-love blinds and whose clear view of advantage fear shakes loose in dangers; a man will begin to be wise when he is more free of care and set beyond fear. But none the less there are some things that even the wise see more carefully in another than in themselves. Besides, the wise man will offer the wise man that sweetest and most honorable thing — to will the same and to refuse the same; they will draw an excellent work under an equal yoke.

Aiunt homines plus in alieno negotio videre, vitio hoc illis evenit, quos amor sui excaecat quibusque dispectum utilitatis timor in periculis excutit; incipiet sapere securior et extra metum positus. Sed nihilominus quaedam sunt, quae etiam sapientes in alio quam in se diligentius vident. Praeterea illud dulcissimum et honestissimum idem velle atque idem nolle sapiens sapienti praestabit; egregium opus pari iugo ducet.

I have paid off what you demanded, although it lay in the order of the matters we take in with the volumes of moral philosophy. Consider what I am wont to say to you often: that in these things we exercise nothing but our wits. For so often I come back to this: how does this help me? Make me now braver, juster, more temperate. There is no leisure yet to be put through exercises; I still need a doctor.

Persolvi id quod exegeras, quamquam in ordine rerum erat, quas moralis philosophiae voluminibus complectimur. Cogita, quod soleo frequenter tibi dicere, in istis nos nihil aliud quam acumen exercere. Totiens enim illo revertor: quid ista me res iuvat? Fortiorem fac iam, iustiorem, temperantiorem. Nondum exerceri vacat; adhuc medico mihi opus est.

Why do you demand of me a useless knowledge? You promised great things; exact them, look to it. You used to say I would be unafraid even if swords flashed about me, even if the point touched my throat; you used to say I would be free of care even if fires blazed about me, even if a sudden whirlwind snatched my ship over the whole sea. Furnish me this concern: that I despise pleasure, that I despise glory. Afterward you will teach me to loose the tangled, to distinguish the ambiguous, to see through the obscure; now teach what is necessary. Farewell.

Quid me poscis scientiam inutilem? Magna promisisti; exige, vide. Dicebas intrepidum fore, etiam si circa me gladii micarent, etiam si mucro tangeret iugulum; dicebas securum fore, etiam si circa me flagrarent incendia, etiam si subitus turbo toto navem meam mari raperet. Hanc mihi praesta curam, ut voluptatem, ut gloriam contemnam. Postea docebis inplicta solvere, ambigua distinguere, obscura perspicere; nunc doce quod necesse est. Vale.

From my Nomentan place I greet you and bid you have a good mind — that is, all the gods favorable to you; and he has them appeased and kindly who has made himself favorable to himself. Set aside for the present what pleases some, that to each of us is given a god as tutor — not indeed of the ordinary rank, but one of the lower mark, of the number of those whom Ovid calls “gods of the commons.” Yet I would have you set this aside in such a way as to remember that our forefathers, who believed it, were Stoics; for to individuals they assigned both a Genius and a Juno.

Ex Nomentano meo te saluto et iubeo habere mentem bonam, hoc est propitios deos omnis, quos habet placatos et faventes, quisquis sibi se propitiavit. Sepone in praesentia, quae quibusdam placent, unicuique nostrum paedagogum dari deum, non quidem ordinarium, sed hunc inferioris notae ex eorum numero, quos Ovidius ait de plebe deos. Ita tamen hoc seponas volo, ut memineris maiores nostros, qui crediderunt, Stoicos fuisse; singulis enim et Genium et Iunonem dederunt.

Later we shall see whether the gods have leisure enough to manage the affairs of private men; meanwhile know this: whether we are assigned to them or neglected and given over to fortune, you can call down nothing heavier on anyone than to pray that he keep himself angry. But there is no reason, for anyone you have judged worthy of punishment, to wish him the gods for enemies; he has them, I say, even if he seems to be advanced by their favor.

Postea videbimus, an tantum dis vacet, ut privatorum negotia procurent; interim illud scito, sive adsignati sumus, sive neglecti et fortunae dati, nulli te posse inprecari quicquam gravius, quam si inprecatus fueris, ut se habeat iratum. Sed non est quare cuiquam, quem poena putaveris dignum, optes, ut infestos deos habeat; habet, inquam, etiam si videtur eorum favore produci.

Apply your diligence and look at what our affairs are, not what they are called; and you will know that more evils befall us than happen to us. For how often has that which was called calamity been both the cause and the beginning of good fortune? How often has a thing received with great congratulation built itself a step toward the precipice and lifted someone already eminent yet higher, as though he still stood where men fall safely?

Adhibe diligentiam tuam et intuere, quid sint res nostrae, non quid vocentur; et scies plura mala contingere nobis quam accidere. Quotiens enim felicitatis et causa et initium fuit, quod calamitas vocabatur? Quotiens magna gratulatione excepta res gradum sibi struxit in praeceps et aliquem iam eminentem adlevavit etiamnunc, tamquam adhuc ibi staret, unde tuto cadunt?

But that very falling has nothing of evil in it, if you look to the end, beyond which nature has cast no one down. Near is the boundary of all things; near, I say, both that from which the fortunate man is thrown out and that from which the unfortunate is released; we stretch both out and make them long with hope and fear. But if you are wise, measure all things by the human condition; draw in at once both what you rejoice at and what you fear. And it is worth this much — to rejoice at nothing for long — that you may fear nothing for long.

Sed ipsum illud cadere non habet in se mali quidquam, si exitum spectes, ultra quem natura neminem deiecit. Prope est rerum omnium terminus, prope est, inquam, et illud, unde felix eicitur, et illud, unde infelix emittitur; nos utraque extendimus et longa spe ac metu facimus. Sed si sapis, omnia humana condicione metire; simul et quod gaudes et quod times, contrahe. Est autem tanti nihil diu gaudere, ne quid diu timeas.

But why do I confine that evil? There is no reason to think anything is to be feared. Empty are these things that move us, that hold us thunderstruck. None of us has shaken out what was true, but one has passed his fear to another; no one has dared to approach the thing by which he was troubled and to learn the nature, and the good, of his fear. And so a false and empty thing still keeps its credit, because it is not refuted.

Sed quare istuc malum adstringo? Non est quod quicquam timendum putes. Vana sunt ista, quae nos movent, quae attonitos habent. Nemo nostrum quid veri esset, excussit, sed metum alter alteri tradidit; nemo ausus est ad id, quo perturbabatur, accedere et naturam ac bonum timoris sui nosse. Itaque res falsa et inanis habet adhuc fidem, quia non coarguitur.

For as children tremble and fear all things in the blind darkness, so we fear in the light.

Nam veluti pueri trepidant atque omnia caecis In tenebris metuunt, ita nos in luce timemus.

But it is false, Lucretius: we do not fear in the light; we have made all things darkness for ourselves. We see nothing, neither what harms nor what helps; our whole life long we go charging about, and for this do not halt or set our foot more circumspectly. You see, though, how mad a thing is a rush in the dark. But, by Hercules, we so act as to have to be called back from yet farther off, and, though we know not where we are carried, we none the less press on swiftly toward where we are bound.

Sed falsum est, Lucreti, non timemus in luce; omnia nobis fecimus tenebras. Nihil videmus, nec quid noceat nec quid expediat; tota vita incursitamus nec ob hoc resistimus aut circumspectius pedem ponimus. vides autem, quam sit furiosa res in tenebris impetus. At mehercules id agimus, ut longius revocandi simus, et cum ignoremus, quo feramur, velociter tamen illo, quo intendimus, perseveramus.

But it can grow light, if we will. And in one way only can it: if a man receives this knowledge of things human and divine by science, if he has not merely poured it over himself but steeped himself in it, if he goes over the same things again, though he knows them, and refers them often to himself, if he asks what things are good, what evil, and to which this name is falsely ascribed, if he asks about the honorable and the base, about providence.

Sed lucescere, si velimus, potest. Uno autem modo potest, si quis hanc humanorum divinorumque notitiam scientia acceperit, si illa se non perfuderit, sed infecerit, si eadem, quamvis sciat, retractaverit et ad se saepe rettulerit, si quaesierit, quae sint bona, quae mala, quibus hoc falso sit nomen adscriptum, si quaesierit de honestis et turpibus, de providentia.

Nor is the sagacity of the human mind held within these bounds; it has a mind to look out even beyond the world — whither it is borne, whence it rose, to what end this so great speed of things hurries. From this divine contemplation we have dragged the soul off into sordid and lowly things, to make it the slave of greed, so that, leaving the world and its boundaries and the masters who turn all things about, it ransacks the earth and seeks what evil it may dig out of her, not content with what is offered.

Nec intra haec humani ingenii sagacitas sistitur; prospicere et ultra mundum libet, quo feratur, unde surrexerit, in quem exitum tanta rerum velocitas properet. Ab hac divina contemplatione abductum animum in sordida et humilia pertraximus, ut avaritiae serviret, ut relicto mundo terminisque eius et dominis cuncta versantibus terram rimaretur et quaereret, quid ex illa mali effoderet, non contentus oblatis.

Whatever was to be for our good, god, our father, set close at hand; he did not wait for our search but gave it of his own accord. The things that would harm us he pressed down deepest. We can complain of nothing but ourselves; the things by which we should perish we have ourselves brought forth, though nature was unwilling and hid them. We have made over our soul to pleasure, to indulge which is the beginning of all evils; we have handed it to ambition and fame and the rest, things equally vain and empty.

Quidquid nobis bono futurum erat, deus et parens noster in proximo posuit; non expectavit inquisitionem nostram et ultro dedit. Nocitura altissime pressit. Nihil nisi de nobis queri possumus; ea, quibus periremus, nolente rerum natura et abscondente protulimus. Addiximus animum voluptati, cui indulgere initium omnium malorum est, tradidimus ambitioni et famae, ceteris aeque vanis et inanibus.

What, then, do I now urge you to do? Nothing new — for remedies are not sought for new evils — but this first: that you discern, with yourself, what is necessary, what superfluous. The necessary will meet you everywhere; the superfluous must be hunted always and with the whole soul.

Quid ergo nunc te hortor ut facias? Nihil novi— nec enim novis malis remedia quaeruntur—sed hoc primum, ut tecum ipse dispicias, quid sit necessarium, quid supervacuum. Necessaria tibi ubique occurrent; supervacua et semper et toto animo quaerenda sunt.

But there is no reason to praise yourself too much if you have despised golden couches and jewelled furniture. For what virtue is it to despise the superfluous? Marvel at yourself then, when you have despised the necessary. You do no great thing in being able to live without royal apparatus, in not longing for thousand-pound boars and flamingo tongues and the other portents of a luxury that now disdains whole animals and picks out chosen parts from each; then I will marvel at you, if you have despised even coarse bread, if you have persuaded yourself that grass, where need is, grows not for cattle only but for man, if you have learned that the tops of trees are stuffing for that belly into which we heap precious things as though it kept what it received. It must be filled without fastidiousness. For what does it matter to it what it takes in, since it will lose whatever it has taken?

Non est autem quod te nimis laudes, si contempseris aureos lectos et gemmeam supellectilem. Quae est enim virtus supervacua contemnere? Tunc te admirare, cum contempseris necessaria. Non magnam rem facis, quod vivere sine regio apparatu potes, quod non desideras milliarios apros nec linguas phoenicopterorum et alia portenta luxuriae iam tota animalia fastidientis et certa membra ex singulis eligentis; tunc te admirabor, si contempseris etiam sordidum panem, si tibi persuaseris herbam, ubi necesse est, non pecori tantum, sed homini nasci, si scieris cacumina arborum explementum esse ventris, in quem sic pretiosa congerimus tamquam recepta servantem. Sine fastidio inplendus est. Quid enim ad rem pertinet, quid accipiat perditurus quicquid acceperit?

The things caught on land and sea delight you, set out in order — some the more welcome if brought fresh to the table, others if, long fed and forced to fatten, they run with fat and scarce hold in their own stuffing. The savor of these, sought out by art, delights you. But, by Hercules, those things anxiously searched out and variously seasoned, once they have gone down into the belly, one and the same foulness will seize. Do you wish to despise the pleasure of food? Look to its end.

Delectant te disposita, quae terra marique capiuntur, alia eo gratiora, si recentia perferantur ad mensam, alia, si diu pasta et coacta pinguescere fluunt ac vix saginam continent suam. Delectat te nidor horum arte quaesitus. At mehercules ista sollicite scrutata varieque condita cum subierint ventrem, una atque eadem foeditas occupabit, vis ciborum voluptatem contemnere? Exitum specta.

I remember Attalus saying these things, to the great admiration of all: “For a long time,” he said, “riches imposed on me. I would stand stupefied whenever something of them gleamed in one place and another. I supposed that what lay hidden was like what was on show. But at a certain procession I saw the whole wealth of the city, chased in gold and silver and in things that have outrun the price of gold and silver — exquisite dyes, and garments fetched from beyond not only our own frontier but beyond the frontier of our enemies; on this side troops of boys conspicuous in dress and beauty, on that of women, and the other things that the fortune of the highest empire, reviewing its possessions, had brought forth.

Attalum memini cum magna admiratione omnium haec dicere: Diu, inquit, mihi inposuere divitiae. Stupebam, ubi aliquid ex illis alio atque alio loco fulserat. Existimabam similia esse quae latercnt laterent, his, quae ostenderentur. Sed in quodam apparatu vidi totas opes urbis caclatas caelata et auro et argento et iis, quae pretium auri argentique vicerunt, exquisitos colores et vestes ultra non tantum nostrum, sed ultra finem hostium advectas; hinc puerorum perspicuos cultu atque forma greges, hinc feminarum, et aha, quae res suas recognoscens summi imperii fortuna protulerat.

What is this,” I said, “but to provoke the desires of men, already incited of themselves? What does this parade of money mean? Have we gathered to learn greed? But, by Hercules, I carry off less covetousness from here than I had brought. I have come to despise riches — not because they are superfluous, but because they are paltry. Did you see how, within a few hours, that procession, slow and ordered though it was, passed by?

Quid hoc est, inquam, aliud nisi inritare cupiditates hominum per se incitatas? Quid sibi vult ista pecuniae pompa? Ad discendam avaritiam convenimus? At mehercules minus cupiditatis istinc effero quam adtuleram. Contempsi divitias, non quia supervacuae, sed quia pusillae sunt. vidistine, quam intra paucas horas ille ordo quamvis lentus dispositusque transierit?

Has this taken up our whole life, which could not take up a whole day?” This too came in addition: they seemed to me as superfluous to those who held them as they were to those who watched.

Hoc totam vitam nostram occupavit, quod totum diem occupare non potuit? Accessit illud quoque: tam supervacuae mihi visae sunt habentibus quam fuerunt spectantibus.

So I say this to myself, whenever some such thing has dazzled my eyes, whenever there has met me a splendid house, a polished retinue of slaves, a litter set on handsome bearers: “Why do you marvel? Why are you stupefied? It is a show. These things are displayed, not possessed; and while they please, they pass.”

Hoc itaque ipse mihi dico, quotiens tale aliquid praestrinxerit oculos meos, quotiens occurrit domus splendida, cohors culta servorum, lectica formonsis inposita calonibus: Quid miraris? Quid stupes? Pompa est. Ostenduntur istae res, non possidentis, et dum placent, transeunt.

Turn yourself rather to true riches. Learn to be content with little, and cry out that great and spirited word: “We have water, we have barley-meal; let us make our quarrel with Jupiter himself over happiness.” Let us make it, I beg you, even if these shall fail. It is shameful to lodge the happy life in gold and silver, equally shameful in water and barley-meal.

Ad veras potius te converte divitias. Disce parvo esse contentus et illam vocem magnus atque animosus exclama: habemus aquam, habemus polentam, Iovi ipsi controversiam de felicitate faciamus. Faciamus, oro te, etiam si ista defuerint. Turpe est beatam vitam in auro et argento reponere, aeque turpe in aqua et polenta.

“What, then, shall I do, if these shall not be there?” You ask what is the remedy for want? Hunger ends hunger; otherwise, what does it matter whether the things that compel you to be a slave are great or small? What does it matter how little it is that fortune can deny you?

‘Quid ergo faciam, si ista non fuerint?’ Quaeris, quod sit remedium inopiae? Famem fames finit; alioquin quid interest, magna sint an exigua, quae servire te cogant? Quid refert, quantulum sit, quod tibi possit negare fortuna?

This very water and barley-meal falls under another’s arbitration. But a free man is not one over whom fortune has little power, but one over whom it has none. So it is: you must desire nothing, if you would challenge Jupiter, who desires nothing. These things Attalus told us; and if you will think them over often, you will work to be happy, not to seem so — and to seem so to yourself, not to others. Farewell.

Haec ipsa aqua et polenta in alienum arbitrium cadit. Liber est autem non in quem parum licet fortunae, sed in quem nihil. Ita est: nihil desideres oportet, si vis Iovem provocare nihil desiderantem. Haec nobis Attalus dixit; quae si voles frequenter cogitare, id ages, ut sis felix, non ut videaris, et ut tibi videaris, non aliis. Vale.

What sophisms are called in Latin, you asked me. Many have tried to fix a name on them, but none has stuck — evidently because, since the thing itself was not received among us nor in use, the name too was resisted. Yet the fittest seems to me the one Cicero used: he calls them cavillationes, “quibbles.”

Quid vocentur Latine sophismata, quaesisti a me. Multi temptaverunt illis nomen inponere, nullum haesit, videlicet, quia res ipsa non recipiebatur a nobis nec in usu erat, nomini quoque repugnatum est. Aptissimum tamen videtur mihi, quo Cicero usus est: cavillationes vocat.

Whoever has given himself over to these weaves cunning little questions, but profits nothing toward life: he grows neither braver nor more temperate nor loftier. But the man who has practiced philosophy as his own remedy grows great in soul, full of confidence, unconquerable, and greater the nearer you approach.

Quibus quisquis se tradidit, quaestiunculas quidem vafras nectit, ceterum ad vitam nihil proficit, neque fortior fit neque temperantior neque elatior. At ille, qui philosophiam in remedium suum exercuit, ingens fit animo, plenus fiduciae, inexsuperabilis et maior adeunti.

It is as with great mountains, whose height shows less to those who look from far off; when you have come close, then it grows plain how aloft their summits stand. Such, my Lucilius, is the true philosopher — one in deeds, not in artifices. He stands on a height, admirable, lofty, of a true greatness. He does not rise on tiptoe nor walk on the tips of his toes, after the manner of those who eke out their stature by a lie and wish to seem taller than they are; he is content with his own greatness.

Quod in magnis evenit montibus, quorum proceritas minus apparet longe intuentibus; cum accesseris, tunc manifestum fit, quo in arduo summa sint; talis est, mi Lucili, verus et rebus, non artificiis philosophus. In edito stat admirabilis, celsus, magnitudinis verae. Non exsurgit in plantas nec summis ambulat digitis eorum more, qui mendacio staturam adiuvant longioresque quam sunt, videri volunt; contentus est magnitudine sua.

Why should he not be content to have grown to a point where fortune’s hand does not reach? Therefore he is both above human things and equal to himself in every state of affairs, whether life runs on a favorable course or is tossed and goes through hardship and difficulty; this constancy those quibbles I spoke of just now cannot supply. The mind plays with them, it does not profit, and it draws philosophy down from her height onto the flat.

Quidni contentus sit eo usque crevisse, quo manus fortuna non porrigit? Ergo et supra humana est et par sibi in omni statu rerum, sive secundo cursu vita procedit, sive fluctuatur et it per adversa ac difficilia; hanc constantiam cavillationes istae, de quibus paulo ante loquebar, praestare non possunt. Ludit istis animus, non proficit, et philosophiam a fastigio suo deducit in planum.

Nor would I forbid you to take them up sometimes — but then, when you wish to do nothing. Yet they have this worst thing in them: they breed a certain sweetness of themselves and hold and delay the mind, drawn on by a show of subtlety, when so great a mass of matters calls, when a whole life scarcely suffices to learn this one thing — to despise life. “What? To rule it,” you say. That is the second task; for no one has ruled life well except the man who had despised it. Farewell.

Nec te prohibuerim aliquando ista agere, sed tunc, cum voles nihil agere. Hoc tamen habent in se pessimum: dulcedinem quandam sui faciunt et animum specie subtilitatis inductum tenent ac morantur, cum tanta rerum moles vocet, cum vix tota vita sufficiat, ut hoc unum discas, vitam contemnere. Quid? Regere, inquis. Secundum opus est; nam nemo illam bene rexit nisi qui contempserat. Vale.

I desire, by Hercules, that your friend be formed, as you wish, and shaped; but he is taken very hard — or rather, what is more troublesome, he is taken very soft, broken by a bad and long-standing habit. I want to bring you an example from our own craft.

Cupio mehercules amicum tuum formari, ut desideras, et institui; sed valde durus capitur, immo, quod est molestius, valde mollis capitur et consuetudine mala ac diutina fractus. Volo tibi ex nostro artificio exemplum referre.

Not every vine endures grafting; if it is old and worm-eaten, if it is weak and slender, it will either not receive the shoot or not nourish it, will neither join it to itself nor pass into its quality and nature. So we are wont to cut it back above ground, that, if it has not answered, a second fortune may be tried, and the graft, set once more, may be inserted below ground.

Non quaelibet insitionem vitis patitur; si vetus et exesa est, si infirma gracilisque, aut non recipiet surculum aut non alet nec adplicabit sibi nec in qualitatem eius naturamque transibit. Itaque solemus supra terram praecidere, ut si non respondit, temptari possit secunda fortuna, et iterum repetita infra terram inseratur.

This man you write of and entrust to me has no strength; he has indulged his vices. He has at once withered and hardened. He cannot receive reason, cannot nourish it. “But he himself desires it.” Do not believe it. I do not say he is lying to you; he thinks he desires it. Luxury has turned his stomach; soon he will come back into favor with it.

Hic, de quo scribis et mandas, non habet vires; indulsit vitiis. Simul et emarcuit et induruit. Non potest recipere rationem, non potest nutrire. At cupit ipse. Noli credere. Non dico illum mentiri tibi; putat se cupere. Stomachum illi fecit luxuria; cito cum illa redibit in gratiam.

“But he says he is offended by his own life.” I would not deny it. For who is not offended? Men both love their vices and hate them at once. So we shall pass sentence on him then, when he has made us believe that luxury is now hateful to him; as it is, he and luxury are merely on bad terms. Farewell.

Sed dicit se offendi vita sua. Non negaverim. Quis enim non offenditur? Homines vitia sua et amant simul et oderunt. Tunc itaque de illo feremus sententiam, cum fidem nobis fecerit invisam iam sibi esse luxuriam; nunc illis male convenit. Vale.

You desire me to write to you what I think of this question bandied about among our school: whether justice, courage, prudence, and the rest of the virtues are living beings. By this subtlety, dearest Lucilius, we have brought it about that we seem to exercise our wits among idle things and to waste our leisure on disputations that will profit nothing. I will do as you desire and set out what our people hold. But I declare that I am of another opinion: I think there are certain things that befit a man in Greek slippers and cloak. Well then, what the points are that moved the ancients — or what the points are that the ancients raised — I will tell.

Desideras tibi scribi a me, quid sentiam de hac quaestione iactata apud nostros: an iustitia, fortitudo, prudentia ceteraeque virtutes animalia sint. Hac subtilitate effecimus, Lucili carissime, ut exercere ingenium inter inrita videremur et disputationibus nihil profuturis otium ferere. Faciam quod desideras, et quid nostris videatur, exponam. Sed me in alia esse sententia profiteor: puto quaedam esse, quae deceant phaecasiatum palliatumque. Quae sint ergo quae antiquos moverint, vel quae sint quae antiqui moverint, dicam.

That the soul is a living being is agreed, since it is itself what makes us living beings, and from it living beings have drawn this name. But virtue is nothing else than the soul in a certain condition; therefore it is a living being. Next, virtue does something; but nothing can be done without impulse. If it has impulse, which belongs to nothing except a living being, it is a living being. “If virtue is a living being,” he says, “virtue itself has virtue.”

Animum constat animal esse, cum ipse efficiat, ut simus animalia, cum ab illo animalia nomen hoc traxerint. virtus autem nihil aliud est quam animus quodammodo se habens; ergo animal est. Deinde virtus agit aliquid; agi autem nihil sine impetu potest. Si impetum habet, qui nulli est nisi animali, animal est. Si animal est, inquit, virtus, habet ipsa virtutem.

Why should it not have itself? Just as the wise man does all things through virtue, so virtue acts through itself. “Therefore,” he says, “all the arts too are living beings, and all that we think and grasp with the mind. It follows that many thousands of living beings dwell within these narrows of the breast, and that we are each of us many living beings, or have many living beings.” You ask what is answered against this? Each of those things will be a living being; they will not be many living beings. Why? I will tell you, if you will lend me your subtlety and your attention.

Quidni habeat se ipsam? Quo modo sapiens omnia per virtutem gerit, sic virtus per se. Ergo, inquit, et omnes artes animalia sunt et omnia, quae cogitamus quaeque mente conplectimur. Sequitur, ut multa millia animalium habitent in his angustiis pectoris, et singuli multa simus animalia aut multa habeamus animalia. Quaeris, quid adversus istud respondeatur? Unaquaeque ex istis res animal erit; multa animalia non erunt. Quare? Dicam, si mihi accommodaveris subtilitatem et intentionem tuam.

Single living beings must have single substances; all those things have one soul; therefore they can be single, they cannot be many. I am both a living being and a man, yet you will not say we are two. Why? Because they must be separate. So I say: the one must be drawn apart from the other, that they be two. Whatever is manifold within one thing falls under one nature; therefore it is one.

Singula animalia singulas habere debent substantias; ista omnia unum animum habent; itaque singula esse possunt, multa esse non possunt. Ego et animal sum et homo, non tamen duos esse nos dices. Quare? Quia separati debent esse. Ita dico: alter ab altero debet esse diductus, ut duo sint. Quicquid in uno multiplex est, sub unam naturam cadit; itaque unum est.

My soul is a living being and I am a living being, yet we are not two. Why? Because the soul is a part of me. A thing will then be counted by itself when it stands by itself. But where it is the member of another, it cannot be seen as something else. Why? I will tell you: because what is something else must be its own and proper and whole and complete within itself.

Et animus meus animal est et ego animal sum, duo tamen non sumus. Quare? Quia animus mei pars est. Tune tunc aliquid per se numerabitur, cum per se stabit. Ubi vero alterius membrum erit, non poterit videri aliud. Quare? Dicam: quia quod aliud est, suum oportet esse et proprium et totum et intra se absolutum.

I have declared myself to be of another opinion. For not only will the virtues be living beings, if this is accepted, but the vices opposed to them as well, and the passions — such as anger, fear, grief, suspicion. The matter will go further: all opinions, all thoughts will be living beings. Which is by no means to be accepted. For not whatever is done by a man is a man.

Ego in alia esse me sententia professus sum. Non enim tantum virtutes animalia erunt, si hoc recipitur, sed opposita quoque illis vitia et adfectus, tamquam ira, timor, luctus, suspicio. Ultra res ista procedet; omnes sententiae, omnes cogitationes animalia erunt. Quod nullo modo recipiendum est. Non enim quicquid ab homine fit, homo est.

“What is justice?” he says. The soul in a certain condition. And so, if the soul is a living being, justice too is. By no means. For this is a state of the soul and a certain force; the same soul is turned into various shapes, and is not a different living being as often as it does a different thing. Nor is that which is done by the soul a living being.

Iustitia quid est? inquit. Animus quodammodo se habens. Itaque si animus animal est, et iustitia. Minime. Haec enim habitus animi est et quaedam vis; idem animus in varias figuras convertitur et non totiens animal aliud est, quotiens aliud facit. Nec illud, quod fit ab animo, animal est.

If justice is a living being, if courage, if the rest of the virtues, do they cease to be living beings and then begin again, or are they always so? The virtues cannot cease. Therefore many living beings — nay, innumerable ones — are at work in this one soul.

Si iustitia animal est, si fortitudo, si ceterae virtutes, utrum desinunt esse animalia, subinde autem rursus incipiunt, an semper sunt? Desinere virtutes non possunt. Ergo multa animalia, immo innumerabilia, in hoc animo versantur.

“They are not many,” he says, “because they are bound out of one, and are the parts and members of one.” We picture to ourselves, then, such a face of the soul as is that of the hydra with its many heads, each of which fights by itself, harms by itself. And yet none of those heads is a living being, but the head of a living being; for the rest, the thing itself is one living being. No one has said that the lion in the Chimaera is a living being, or the serpent; these were its parts; but parts are not living beings. What is it from which you conclude that justice is a living being?

Non sunt, inquit, multa, quia ex uno religata sunt et partes unius ac membra sunt. Talem ergo faciem animi nobis proponimus, qualis est hydrae multa habentis capita, quorum unumquodque per se pugnat, per se nocet. Atqui nullum ex illis capitibus animal est, sed animalis caput, ceterum ipsa unum animal est. Nemo in Chimaera leonem animal esse dixit aut draconem; hae partes erant eius; partes autem non sunt animalia. Quid est, quo colligas iustitiam animal esse?

“It does something,” he says, “and is of profit. But what does something and profits has impulse; and what has impulse is a living being.” It is true — if it has its own impulse; but it does not have its own, but the soul’s.

Agit, inquit, aliquid et prodest. Quod autem agit et prodest, impetum habet; quod autem impetum habet, animal est. Verum est, si suum impetum habet; suum autem non habet, sed animi.

Every living being, until it dies, is what it began as: a man, until he dies, is a man, a horse a horse, a dog a dog. It cannot pass into something else. Justice — that is, the soul in a certain condition — is a living being. Let us grant it; then courage too is a living being, that is, the soul in a certain condition. Which soul? The one that just now was justice? It is held fast in the prior living being; it is not allowed to pass into another living being; it must persevere in that in which it first began to be.

Omne animal, donec moriatur, id est, quod coepit; homo, donec moriatur, homo est, equus equus, canis canis. Transire in aliud non potest. Iustitia, id est animus quodammodo se habens, animal est. Credamus; deinde animal est fortitudo, id est animus quodammodo se habens. Quis animus? Ille, qui modo iustitia erat? Tenetur in priore animali, in aliud animal transire ei non licet; in eo illi, in quo primum esse coepit, perseverandum est.

Besides, one soul cannot belong to two living beings, much less to several. If justice, courage, temperance, and the rest of the virtues are living beings, how will they have one soul? They must have single ones, or they are not living beings.

Praeterea unus animus duorum esse animalium non potest, multo minus plurium. Si iustitia, fortitudo, temperantia ceteraeque virtutes animalia sunt, quo modo unum animum habebunt? Singulos habeant oportet, aut non sunt animalia.

One body cannot belong to several living beings. This even they themselves admit. What is the body of justice? The soul. And the body of courage? The same soul. And yet one body cannot belong to two living beings.

Non potest unum corpus plurium animalium esse. Hoc et ipsi fatentur. Iustitiae quod est corpus? Animus. Quid? Fortitudinis quod est corpus? Idem animus. Atqui unum corpus esse duorum animalium non potest.

“But the same soul,” he says, “puts on the state of justice and of courage and of temperance.” This could happen if, at the time there was justice, there were no courage, and at the time there was courage, no temperance; but as it is, all the virtues are at once. So how will they be single living beings, when there is one soul, which can make no more than one living being?

Sed idem animus, inquit, iustitiae habitum induit et fortitudinis et temperantiae. Hoc fieri posset, si quo tempore iustitia esset, fortitudo non esset, quo tempore fortitudo esset, temperantia non esset; nunc vero omnes virtutes simul sunt. Ita quomodo singulae erunt animalia, cum unus animus sit, qui plus quam unum animal non potest facere?

Finally, no living being is a part of another living being. But justice is a part of the soul; therefore it is not a living being. I seem to myself to be wasting labor on a thing confessed; for one ought rather to be indignant at this than dispute it. No living being is equal to another. Look round at the bodies of all: there is none that has not both its own color and its own shape and size.

Denique nullum animal pars est alterius animalis. Iustitia autem pars est animi; non est ergo animal, videor mihi in re confessa perdere operam; magis enim indignandum de isto quam disputandum est. Nullum animal alteri par est. Circumspice omnium corpora: nulli non et color proprius est et figura sua et magnitudo.

Among the other things for which the genius of the divine craftsman is marvelous, I count this too: that in so great an abundance of things he never fell upon the same thing twice; even the things that seem alike, when you have compared them, are different. He made so many kinds of leaves: not one unmarked by its own property. So many living beings: the size of none agrees with another’s; there is always some difference. He required of himself that the things which were different should be both unlike and unequal; the virtues, as you say, are all equal. Therefore they are not living beings.

Inter cetera, propter quae mirabile divini artificis ingenium est, hoc quoque existimo, et quod in tanta copia rerum numquam in idem incidit; etiam quae similia videntur, cum contuleris, diversa sunt. Tot fecit genera foliorum: nullum non sua proprietate signatum. Tot animalia: nullius magnitudo cum altero convenit, utique aliquid interest. Exegit a se, ut quae alia erant, et dissimilia essent et inparia; virtutes omnes, ut dicitis, pares sunt. Ergo non sunt animalia.

Every living being acts by itself. But virtue does nothing by itself, but with a man. All living beings are either rational, as men, as gods, or irrational, as beasts, as cattle. The virtues are certainly rational; and yet they are neither men nor gods; therefore they are not living beings.

Nullum non animal per se agit. virtus autem per se nihil agit, sed cum homine. Omnia animalia aut rationalia sunt, ut homines, ut di, aut inrationalia, ut ferae, ut pecora. virtutes utique rationales sunt; atqui nec homines sunt nec di; ergo non sunt animalia.

Every rational living being does nothing unless it is first roused by the appearance of something, then takes an impulse, then assent confirms this impulse. What assent is, I will tell you. “I ought to walk”: then at last I walk, when I have said this to myself and approved this opinion of mine. “I ought to sit”: then at last I sit. This assent is not in virtue.

Omne rationale animal nihil agit, nisi primum specie alicuius rei inritatum est, deinde impetum cepit, deinde adsensio confirmavit hunc impetum. Quid sit adsensio, dicam. Oportet me ambulare: tunc demum ambulo, cum hoc mihi dixi et adprobavi hanc opinionem meam. Oportet me sedere: tunc demum sedeo. Haec adsensio in virtute non est.

For suppose prudence to be a living being; how shall it assent that “I ought to walk”? Nature does not admit this. For prudence looks out for him whose it is, not for itself. For it can neither walk nor sit. Therefore it has no assent; it is not a rational living being. If virtue is a living being, it is rational.

Puta enim prudentiam esse; quomodo adsentietur oportet me ambulare? Hoc natura non recipit. Prudentia enim ei, cuius est, prospicit, non sibi. Nam nec ambulare potest nec sedere. Ergo adsensionem non habet, rationale animal non est. virtus si animal est, rationale est.

But it is not rational; therefore not a living being either. If virtue is a living being, and virtue is a good, is not every good a living being? It is. This our people admit. To save one’s father is a good, and to give one’s opinion prudently in the senate is a good, and to judge justly is a good; therefore to save one’s father is a living being, and to give one’s opinion prudently is a living being. The thing is carried so far that you cannot hold your laughter: to keep silent prudently is a good, to dine frugally is a good; so both keeping silent and dining are living beings.

Rationale autem non est; ergo nec animal. Si virtus animal est, virtus autem bonum, non est omne bonum animal? Est. Hoc nostri fatentur. Patrem servare bonum est, et sententiam prudenter in senatu dicere bonum est, et iuste decernere bonum est; ergo et patrem servare animal est et prudenter sententiam dicere animal est. Eo usque res exegit, ut risum tenere non possis: prudenter tacere bonum est, frugaliter cenare bonum est; ita et tacere et cenare animal est.

I, by Hercules, will not stop tickling myself and making sport out of these subtle absurdities. Justice and courage, if they are living beings, are certainly land-creatures. Every land-creature feels cold, hunger, thirst; therefore justice feels cold, courage goes hungry, clemency is thirsty.

Ego mehercules titillare non desinam et ludos mihi ex istis subtilibus ineptus facere. Iustitia et fortitudo, si animalia sunt, certe terrestria sunt. Omne animal terrestre alget, esurit, sitit; ergo iustitia alget, fortitudo esurit, clementia sitit.

What further? Shall I not ask them what shape these living beings have? Of a man, or a horse, or a beast? If they give them a round shape, such as they have given to god, I will ask whether greed too and luxury and madness are equally round. For these too are living beings. If they have rounded these as well, I will still ask whether a prudent walk is a living being. They must confess it, and then say that a walk is a living being — and a round one at that.

Quid porro? Non interrogabo illos, quam figuram habeant ista animalia? Hominis an equi an ferae? Si rotundam illis qualem deo dederint, quaeram, an et avaritia et luxuria et dementia aeque rotundae sint. Sunt enim et ipsae animalia. Si has quoque conrotundaverint, etiamnunc interrogabo, an prudens ambulatio animal sit. Necesse est confiteantur, deinde dicant ambulationem animal esse et quidem rotundum.

But do not think I am the first of our school to speak not by the rule but on my own opinion: between Cleanthes and his pupil Chrysippus there is no agreement on what walking is. Cleanthes says it is breath sent out from the ruling part all the way to the feet, Chrysippus that it is the ruling part itself. Why then should not each man, by Chrysippus’s own example, claim himself for himself and laugh at all those living beings — so many that the world itself cannot hold them?

Ne putes autem primum me ex nostris non ex praescripto loqui, sed meae sententiae esse: inter Cleanthen et discipulum eius Chrysippum non convenit, quid sit ambulatio. Cleanthes ait spiritum esse a principali usque in pedes permissum, Chrysippus ipsum principale. Quid est ergo, cur non ipsius Chrysippi exemplo sibi quisque se vindicet et ista tot animalia, quot mundus ipse non potest capere, derideat?

“The virtues,” he says, “are not many living beings, and yet they are living beings. For just as someone is both a poet and an orator, and yet one man, so those virtues are living beings, but are not many. The same soul is soul, and just, and prudent, and brave, standing in a certain condition toward each single virtue.”

Non sunt, inquit, virtutes multa animalia, et tamen animalia sunt. Nam quemadmodum aliquis et poeta est et orator, et tamen unus, sic virtutes istae animalia sunt, sed multa non sunt. Idem est animus et animus et iustus et prudens et fortis, ad singulas virtutes quodammodo se habens.

The controversy taken away, we are agreed. For I too, meanwhile, confess that the soul is a living being — meaning to see later what opinion I shall pass on this matter; but I deny that its actions are living beings. Otherwise all words too will be living beings, and all verses; for if a prudent speech is a good, and every good is a living being, a speech is a living being. A prudent verse is a good, and every good is a living being; therefore a verse is a living being. So “Arms and the man I sing” is a living being — which they cannot call round, since it has six feet.

Sublata controversia convenit nobis. Nam et ego interim fateor animum animal esse, postea visurus, quam de ista re sententiam feram; actiones eius animalia esse nego. Alioqui et omnia verba erunt animalia et omnes versus; nam si prudens sermo bonum est, bonum autem omne animal est, sermo animal est. Prudens versus bonum est, bonum autem omne animal est; versus ergo animal est. Ita arma virumque cano, animal est, quod non possunt rotundum dicere, cum sex pedes habeat.

“A perfect web, by Hercules, all this that is being woven now,” you say. I burst with laughter when I picture to myself that a solecism is a living being, and a barbarism, and a syllogism, and assign them fit faces like a painter. These things we dispute with knitted brows, with wrinkled forehead? I cannot here say that line of Caelius: “O sorry trifles!” They are ridiculous. Why, then, do we not rather handle something useful and wholesome to us, and ask how we may arrive at the virtues, what road may bring us to them?

Textorium, inquis, totum mehercules istud, quod cum maxime agitur. Dissilio risu, cum mihi propono soloecismum animal esse et barbarismum et synlogismum et aptas illis facies tamquam pictor adsigno. Haec disputamus attractis superciliis, fronte rugosa? Non possum hoc loco dicere illud Caelianum: O tristes ineptias. Ridiculae sunt. Quin itaque potius aliquid utile nobis ac salutare tractamus et quaerimus, quomodo ad virtutes pervenire possimus, quae nos ad illas via adducat.

Teach me, not whether courage is a living being, but that no living being is happy without courage, unless it has grown strong against chance and has tamed beforehand, by forethought, every accident before it met it. What is courage? The impregnable bulwark of human weakness, which whoever has set about himself endures untroubled in this siege of life; for he uses his own strength, his own weapons.

Doce me non an fortitudo animal sit, sed nullum animal felix esse sine fortitudine, nisi contra fortuita convaluit et omnis casus, antequam exciperet, meditando praedomuit. Quid est fortitudo? Munimentum humanae imbecillitatis inexpugnabile, quod qui circumdedit sibi, securus in hac Vitae obsidione perdurat; utitur enim suis viribus, suis telis.

Here I want to report to you the saying of our Posidonius: “There is no reason ever to think yourself safe by fortune’s arms; fight with your own. Against herself fortune does not arm us; and so men equipped against their enemies are unarmed against her.”

Hoc loco tibi Posidonii nostri referre sententiam volo: Non est quod umquam fortunae armis putes esse te tutum; tuis pugna. Contra ipsam fortuna non armat; itaque contra hostes instructi, contra ipsam inermes sunt.

Alexander indeed laid waste and put to flight the Persians and Hyrcanians and Indians and whatever nations the east extends as far as the ocean; but he himself — now with a friend killed, now with one lost — lay in darkness, mourning at one moment his crime, at another his loss, the conqueror of so many kings and peoples succumbing to anger and grief. For he had labored to have all things in his power rather than his own passions.

Alexander Persas quidem et Hyrcanos et Indos et quicquid gentium usque in oceanum extendit oriens, vastabat fugabatque, sed ipse modo occiso amico, modo amisso iacebat in tenebris, alias scelus, alias desiderium suum maerens, victor tot regum atque populorum irae tristitiaeque succumbens. Id enim egerat, ut omnia potius haberet in potestate quam adfectus.

O with how great errors are men held, who long to spread the right of dominion across the seas, and judge themselves most fortunate if they hold many provinces by force of arms and add new ones to old, ignorant of what that vast kingdom, equal to the gods, may be.

O quam magnis homines tenentur erroribus, qui ius dominandi trans maria cupiunt permittere felicissimosque se iudicant, si multas milite provincias optinent et novas veteribus adiungunt, ignari, quod sit illud ingens parque dis regnum.

To command oneself is the greatest command. Let it teach me how sacred a thing justice is, looking to another’s good, seeking nothing from itself except its own exercise. Let it have nothing to do with ambition and fame; let it please itself. Let each man, before all things, persuade himself of this: I must be just for nothing. That is too little; let him further persuade himself: let it be my pleasure even to spend myself freely upon this most beautiful virtue. Let one’s whole thought be turned as far as possible from private advantages. There is no reason to look to what may be the reward of a just deed; the greater reward is in being just. Fix this further upon yourself, what I was saying a little before: that it matters nothing how many know your fairness.

Imperare sibi maximum imperium est. Doceat me, quam sacra res sit iustitia alienum bonum spectans, nihil ex se petens nisi usum sui. Nihil sit illi cum ambitione famaque; sibi placeat. Hoc ante omnia sibi quisque persuadeat: me iustum esse gratis oportet. Parum est; adhuc illud persuadeat sibi: me in hanc pulcherrimam virtutem ultro etiam inpendere iuvet. Tota cogitatio a privatis commodis quam longissime aversa sit. Non est quod spectes, quod sit iustae rei praemium; maius in iusto est. Illud adhuc tibi adfige, quod paulo ante dicebam: nihil ad rem pertinere, quam multi aequitatem tuam noverint.

He who wishes his virtue to be made public labors not for virtue but for glory. Are you unwilling to be just without glory? But, by Hercules, you will often have to be just with infamy. And then, if you are wise, let a bad reputation, well earned, delight you. Farewell.

Qui virtutem suam publicari vult, non virtuti laborat, sed gloriae. Non vis esse iustus sine gloria? At mehercules saepe iustus esse debebis cum infamia. Et tunc, si sapis, mala opinio bene parta delectet. Vale.

You ask why, in certain ages, a speech of corrupt kind has come forth, and how the bent of men’s talents has been made toward certain vices, so that at one time an inflated style flourished, at another a broken one drawn out into the manner of a song; why at one time bold meanings, gone beyond belief, have pleased, at another abrupt and suggestive epigrams, in which more had to be understood than heard; why some age has used the right of metaphor without shame. This is what you are wont to hear commonly, what among the Greeks passed into a proverb: as a man’s life, so was his speech.

Quare quibusdam temporibus provenerit corrupti generis oratio quaeris, et quomodo in quaedam vitia inclinatio ingeniorum facta sit, ut aliquando inflata explicatio vigeret, aliquando infracta et in morem cantici ducta? Quare alias sensus audaces et fidem egressi placuerint, alias abruptae sententiae et suspiciosae, in quibus plus intellegendum esset quam audiendum? Quare aliqua aetas fuerit, quae translationis iure uteretur inverecunde? Hoc quod audire vulgo soles, quod apud Graecos in proverbium cessit: talis hominibus fuit oratio qualis vita.

And as each man’s conduct resembles his speech, so the manner of speaking sometimes imitates the public morals, if the discipline of the state has slackened and given itself over to delights. The wantonness of public speech is a proof of public luxury — provided it was not in one man or another, but was approved and received.

Quemadmodum autem uniuscuiusque actio dicenti similis est, sic genus dicendi aliquando imitatur publicos mores, si disciplina civitatis laboravit et se in delicias dedit. Argumentum est luxuriae publicae orationis lascivia, si modo non in uno aut in altero fuit, sed adprobata est et recepta.

The color of the talent cannot be one thing, that of the soul another. If the soul is sound, if it is composed, grave, temperate, the talent too is dry and sober; that being corrupted, this too is breathed upon. Do you not see, if the soul has grown languid, that the limbs are dragged and the feet move sluggishly? If it is effeminate, that softness shows in the very gait? If it is keen and fierce, that the step is quickened? If it rages, or — what is like rage — is angry, that the body’s motion is troubled, and does not go but is carried along? How much more, do you think, does this happen to the talent, which is wholly mingled with the soul; by it it is shaped, it obeys it, from it it takes its law.

Non potest alius esse ingenio, alius animo color. Si ille sanus est, si compositus, gravis, temperans, ingenium quoque siccum ac sobrium est; illo vitiato hoc quoque adflatur. Non vides, si animus elanguit, trahi membra et pigre moveri pedes? Si ille effeminatus est, in ipso incessu adparere mollitiam? Si ille acer est et ferox, concitari gradum? Si furit aut, quod furori simile est, irascitur, turbatum esse corporis motum nec ire, sed ferri? Quanto hoc magis accidere ingenio putas, quod totum animo permixtum est; ab illo fingitur, illi paret, inde legem petit.

How Maecenas lived is too well known to need telling now — how he walked, how dainty he was, how he longed to be seen, how unwilling he was that his vices stay hidden. What then? Is not his speech as loose-girt as he himself was ungirt? Are his words not as conspicuous as his dress, his retinue, his house, his wife? He had been a man of great talent, if he had directed it by a straighter road, if he had not shunned being understood, if he had not even in his speech flowed apart. So you will see the eloquence of a drunken man — wrapped up and wandering and full of license.

Quomodo Maecenas vixerit notius est, quam ut narrari nunc debeat, quomodo ambulaverit, quam delicatus fuerit, quam cupierit videri, quam vitia sua latere noluerit. Quid ergo? Non oratio eius aeque soluta est quam ipse discinctus? Non tam insignita illius verba sunt quam cultus, quam comitatus, quam domus, quam uxor? Magni vir ingenii fuerat, si illud egisset via rectiore, si non vitasset intellegi, si non etiam in oratione difflueret. videbis itaque eloquentiam ebrii hominis involutam et errantem et licentiae plenam.

“What is more shameful than a river and woods with their banks in leafy hair? See how they plough the channel with skiffs and, the shallows turned, send back the gardens.” What of this? “If someone curls at a woman’s nod and coos with his lips and begins, sighing, like the lords of the grove with weary neck.” “An incurable faction, they rummage among the feasts and try the houses with the flagon and exact death by hope.” “A Genius scarce a witness of his own feast-day.” “The threads of a slender taper and the crackling meal — the hearth a mother or a wife arrays.”

Quid turpius amne silvisque ripa comantibus? vide ut alveum lintribus arent versoque vado remittant hortos. Quid? Si quis feminae cinno crispat et labris columbatur incipitque suspirans, ut cervice lassa fanantur nemoris tyranni. Inremediabilis factio rimantur epulis lagonaque temptant domos et spe mortem exigunt. Genium festo vix suo testem. Tenuisve cerei fila et crepacem molam Focum mater aut uxor investiunt.

Will it not at once occur to you, when you have read these, that this is the man who always went through the city with his tunic loose? For even when he discharged the office of the absent Caesar, the watchword was sought from a man ungirt. That this is the man who on the tribunal, on the rostra, in every public gathering so appeared that his head was veiled with a cloak, with both ears left sticking out, just as the runaway slaves of a rich man are got up in a mime? That this is the man who, when the civil wars were at their loudest and the city was anxious and under arms, had for his public retinue two eunuchs — yet more men, for all that, than himself? That this is the man who “married a wife a thousand times,” though he had but one? These words, so wickedly built, so carelessly thrown down, so set against the usage of all men, show that his morals too were no less new and crooked and singular.

Non statim, cum haec legeris, hoc tibi occurret, hunc esse, qui solutis tunicis in urbe semper incesserit? Nam etiam cum absentis Caesaris partibus fungeretur, signum a discincto petebatur. Hunc esse qui in tribunali, in rostris, in omni publico coetu sic apparuerit, ut pallio velaretur caput exclusis utrimque auribus, non aliter quam in mimo fugitivi divitis solent? Hunc esse, cui tunc maxime civilibus bellis strepentibus et sollicita urbe et armata comitatus hic fuerit in publico spadones duo, magis tamen viri quam ipse? Hunc esse, qui uxorem milliens duxi, cum unam habuerit? Haec verba tam improbe structa, tam neglegenter abiecta, tam contra consuetudinem omnium posita ostendunt mores quoque non minus novos et pravos et singulares fuisse.

The greatest praise given him is for mildness: he spared the sword, abstained from blood, and showed what he could do by nothing else than by his license; but this very praise of his he corrupted by those most monstrous niceties of speech.

Maxima laus illi tribuitur mansuetudinis, pepercit gladio, sanguine abstinuit nec ulla alia re, quid posset, quam licentia ostendit; hanc ipsam laudem suam corrupit istis orationis portentosissimae deliciis.

For it appears that he was soft, not gentle. This the windings of his composition, this his crosswise words, this his strange meanings — often great indeed, but unstrung as they come out — will make plain to anyone. His head had been turned by too much good fortune. Which fault is sometimes the man’s, sometimes the age’s.

Apparet enim mollem fuisse, non mitem. Hoc istae ambages compositionis, hoc verba transversa, hoc sensus miri, magni quidem saepe, sed enervati dum exeunt, cuivis manifestum facient. Motum illi felicitate nimia caput. Quod vitium hominis esse interdum, interdum temporis solet.

When good fortune has poured luxury far and wide, first the care of bodies begins to be more diligent. Then there is toil over furniture. Then care is spent on the houses themselves, that they run out into the broadness of the countryside, that the walls gleam with marbles fetched across the seas, that the ceilings be picked out with gold, that the brightness of the floors answer the panelled roofs. Then the elegance is carried over to dinners, and there a recommendation is hunted from novelty and from the reversal of the usual order, so that the dishes which are wont to close a dinner are set first, and what was given to those arriving is given to those leaving.

Ubi luxuriam late felicitas fudit, cultus primum corporum esse diligentior incipit. Deinde supellectili laboratur. Deinde in ipsas domos inpenditur cura, ut in laxitatem ruris excurrant, ut parietes advectis trans maria marmoribus fulgeant, ut tecta varientur auro, ut lacunaribus pavimentorum respondeat nitor. Deinde ad cenas lautitia transfertur, et illic commendatio ex novitate et soliti ordinis commutatione captatur, ut ea, quae includere solent cenam, prima ponantur, ut quae advenientibus dabantur, exeuntibus dentur.

When the soul has grown used to disdain what is according to custom, and the usual is to it as sordid, even in speech it seeks what is new, and now calls back and brings out old and obsolete words, now coins and twists unknown ones, now — what has lately grown frequent — a bold and frequent metaphor is held for elegance.

Cum adsuevit animus fastidire, quae ex more sunt, et illi pro sordidis solita sunt, etiam in oratione, quod novum est, quaerit et modo antiqua verba atque exsoleta revocat ac profert, modo fingit et ignota ac deflectit, modo, id quod nuper increbruit, pro cultu habetur audax translatio ac frequens.

There are those who cut their meanings short and hope for grace from this, if the sentence has hung in suspense and made the hearer suspect a hidden sense. There are those who hold them back and stretch them out. There are those who do not merely come up to a fault — for one attempting something grand must do that — but who love the fault itself. So wherever you see a corrupt speech give pleasure, there it will be past doubt that the morals too have fallen away from the straight. As the luxury of banquets, as that of dress, are signs of a sick state, so the license of speech, if only it is widespread, shows that the souls too, from which the words come out, have collapsed.

Sunt qui sensus praecidant et hoc gratiam sperent, si sententia pependerit et audienti suspicionem sui fecerit. Sunt qui illos detineant et porrigant. Sunt qui non usque ad vitium accedant, necesse est enim hoc facere aliquid grande temptanti, sed qui ipsum vitium ament. Itaque ubicumque videris orationem corruptam placere, ibi mores quoque a recto descivisse non erit dubium. Quomodo conviviorum luxuria, quomodo vestium aegrae civitatis indicia sunt, sic orationis licentia, si modo frequens est, ostendit animos quoque, a quibus verba exeunt, procidisse.

You ought not, indeed, to marvel that corrupt things are taken up not only by the baser ring of listeners but by this more polished crowd as well; for these men differ from one another in their togas, not in their judgments. You may rather marvel at this: that not only faulty things, but the very faults, are praised. For this has always been done: no talent has pleased without indulgence. Give me whomever you wish, a man of great name; I will tell you what his age forgave him, what it knowingly winked at in him. I will give you many to whom their vices did no harm, some to whom they were of profit. I will give you, I say, men of the greatest fame and set among things to be admired, whom whoever corrects, destroys; for the vices are so mixed in with the virtues that they would carry those down along with themselves.

Mirari quidem non debes corrupta excipi non tantum a corona sordidiore, sed ab hac quoque turba cultiore, togis enim inter se isti, non iudiciis distant. Hoc magis mirari potes, quod non tantum vitiosa, sed vitia laudentur. Nam illud semper factum est: nullum sine venia placuit ingenium. Da mihi quemcumque vis, magni nominis virum; dicam, quid illi aetas sua ignoverit, quid in illo sciens dissimulaverit. Multos tibi dabo, quibus vitia non nocuerint, quosdam, quibus profuerint. Dabo, inquam, maximae famae et inter admiranda propositos, quos si quis corrigit, delet; sic enim vitia virtutibus inmissa sunt, ut illas secum fractura sint.

Add now that speech has no fixed rule; the custom of the state turns it about — a custom that has never stood long in the same place. Many seek words from another age; they speak the Twelve Tables. Gracchus and Crassus and Curio are too cultivated and recent for them; they go all the way back to Appius and Coruncanius. Some, on the contrary, while they want nothing but the worn and the usual, fall into squalor.

Adice nunc, quod oratio certam regulam non habet; consuetudo illam civitatis, quae numquam in eodem diu stetit, versat. Multi ex alieno saeculo petunt verba, duodecim tabulas loquuntur. Gracchus illis et Crassus et Curio nimis culti et recentes sunt, ad Appium usque et Coruncanium redeunt. Quidam contra, dum nihil nisi tritum et usitatum volunt, in sordes incidunt.

Each is corrupted in a different kind, just as much, by Hercules, as to wish to use nothing but splendid and sounding and poetic words and to shun the necessary and those set in common use. I would say this man sins as much as that: the one adorns himself more than is right, the other neglects himself more than is right; the one even wears the hair on his shins, the other not even that under his arms.

Utrumque diverso genere corruptum est, tam mehercules quam nolle nisi splendidis uti ac sonantibus et poeticis, necessaria atque in usu posita vitare. Tam hunc dicam peccare quam illum: alter se plus iusto colit, alter plus iusto neglegit; ille et crura, hic ne alas quidem vehit.

Let us pass to composition. How many kinds shall I give you in this, in which one may err? Some approve a broken and rough composition; they deliberately disturb it, if anything has flowed too smoothly. They want no joint without a jolt; they think manly and strong whatever strikes the ear by its unevenness. With some it is not composition but melody, so much does it coax and slip softly along.

Ad compositionem transeamus. Quot genera tibi in hac dabo, quibus peccetur? Quidam praefractam et asperam probant; disturbant de industria, si quid placidius effluxit. Nolunt sine salebra esse iuncturam; virilem putant et fortem, quae aurem inaequalitate percutiat. Quorundam non est compositio, modulatio est; adeo blanditur et molliter labitur.

What shall I say of that in which the words are put off and, long awaited, scarcely come back to their closing cadence? What of that, slow at the ending — such as Cicero’s is — sloping down and gently holding back, and answering, just as is its wont, to its own manner and step? The fault is not only in the kind of the sentences — if they are either petty and childish, or shameless and more daring than is allowed with modesty kept safe, if they are florid and too sweet, if they go off into emptiness and, with no effect, are nothing more than what they sound.

Quid de illa loquar, in qua verba differuntur et diu expectata vix ad clausulas redeunt? Quid illa in exitu lenta, qualis Ciceronis est, devexa et molliter detinens nec aliter quam solet, ad morem suum pedemque respondens? Non tantum in genere sententiarum vitium est, si aut pusillae sunt et pueriles aut improbae et plus ausae quam pudore salvo licet, si floridae sunt et nimis dulces, si in vanum exeunt et sine effectu nihil amplius quam sonant.

These faults some one man brings in, under whom eloquence then stands; the rest imitate and hand them on from one to another. So, while Sallust flourished, lopped-off sentences, words falling before they were expected, and an obscure brevity passed for elegance. L. Arruntius, a man of rare frugality, who wrote histories of the Punic War, was a Sallustian and strained toward that kind. There is in Sallust: “he made an army with money” — that is, procured it with money. This Arruntius began to love; he set it on every page. In one place he says: “they made a flight of our men.” In another: “Hiero, king of the Syracusans, made war.” And in another: “which things, once heard, made the men of Panhormus surrender to the Romans.”

Haec vitia unus aliquis inducit, sub quo tunc eloquentia est, ceteri imitantur et alter alteri tradunt. Sic Sallustio vigente anputatae sententiae et verba ante exspectatum cadentia et obscura brevitas fuere pro cultu. L. Arruntius, vir rarae frugalitatis, qui historias belli Punici scripsit, fuit Sallustianus et in illud genus nitens. Est apud Sallustium: exercitum argenta fecitt, id est, pecunia paravit. Hoc Arruntius amare coepit; posuit illud omnibus paginis. Dicit quodam loco: fugam nostris fecere. Alio loco: Hiero, rex Syracusanorum, bellum fecit. Et alio loco: quae audita Panhormitanos dedere Romanis fecere.

I wanted to give you a taste; the whole book is woven with such things. What were rare in Sallust are in this man frequent and almost unbroken — and not without cause; for the one fell into them, this one hunted for them. You see, though, what follows when someone’s fault is set up as a model.

Gustum tibi dare volui; totus his contexitur liber. Quae apud Sallustium rara fuerunt, apud hunc crebra sunt et paene continua, nec sine causa; ille enim in haec incidebat, at hic illa quaerebat. Vides autem, quid sequatur, ubi alicui vitium pro exemplo est.

Sallust said “with the waters wintering.” Arruntius, in the first book of the Punic War, says: “suddenly the weather wintered.” And elsewhere, wishing to say the year had been cold, he says: “the whole year wintered.” And in another place: “thence he sent sixty light transports, besides the soldiers and the necessary crew, with the north wind wintering.” He does not cease to stuff this word in at every turn. In a certain place Sallust says: “amid civil arms he seeks the repute of a fair and good man.” Arruntius could not refrain from putting, in his very first book, that “there were vast reputes about Regulus.”

Dixit Sallustius: aquis hiemantibus. Arruntius in primo libro belli Punici ait: repente hiemavit tempestas. Et alio loco cum dicere vellet frigidum annum fuisse, ait: totus hiemavit annus. Et alio loco: inde sexaginta onerarias leves praeter militem et necessarios nautarum hiemante aquilone misit. Non desinit omnibus locis hoc verbum infulcire. Quodam loco dicit Sallustius: inter arma civilia aequi bonique famas petit. Arruntius non temperavit, quo minus primo statim libro poneret ingentes esse famas de Regulo.

These faults, then, and the like, which imitation has stamped on a man, are not signs of luxury or of a corrupt soul; for the things by which you may estimate someone’s feeling must be his own and born of himself. An angry man’s speech is angry, an over-excited man’s too keyed up, a dainty man’s tender and flowing.

Haec ergo et eiusmodi vitia, quae alicui inpressit imitatio, non sunt indicia luxuriae nec animi corrupti; propria enim esse debent et ex ipso nata, ex quibus tu aestimes alicuius adfectus. Iracundi hominis iracunda oratio est, commoti nimis incitata, delicati tenera et fluxa.

Which you see those men pursue who either pluck out their beard or thin it, who clip and shave their lips closer while the rest is kept and let grow long, who put on cloaks of a shameless color, who put on a see-through toga, who are unwilling to do anything that might be allowed to pass before men’s eyes; they provoke them and turn their gaze upon themselves; they are willing even to be blamed, so long as they are looked at. Such is the speech of Maecenas and of all the others who err not by chance but knowingly and willingly.

Quod vides istos sequi, qui aut vellunt barbam aut intervellunt, qui labra pressius tondent et adradunt servata et summissa cetera parte, qui lacernas coloris improbi sumunt, qui perlucentem togam, qui nolunt facere quicquam, quod hominum oculis transire liceat; inritant illos et in se advertunt; volunt vel reprehendi, dum conspici. Talis est oratio Maecenatis omniumque aliorum, qui non casu errant sed scientes volentesque.

This springs from a great evil of the soul. As in wine the tongue does not stumble before the mind has given way to the load and been tipped over or betrayed, so that drunkenness of speech — for what else is it? — is a nuisance to no one, unless the soul is slipping. Therefore let the soul be cared for; from it come our meanings, from it our words, from it our bearing, our look, our gait. With it sound and strong, the speech too is robust, brave, manly; if it has collapsed, the rest follow the ruin.

Hoc a magno animi malo oritur. Quomodo in vino non ante lingua titubat quam mens cessit oneri et inclinata vel prodita est, ita ista orationis quid aliud quam ebrietas nulli molesta est, nisi animus labat? Ideo ille curetur; ab illo sensus, ab illo verba exeunt, ab illo nobis est habitus, vultus, incessus. Illo sano ac valente oratio quoque robusta, fortis, virilis est; si ille procubuit, et cetera ruinam sequuntur.

While the king is safe, all keep one mind; once he is lost, they break their faith.

Rege incolumi mens omnibus una est; Amisso rupere fidem.

Since I have used this likeness, I will keep at it: our soul is at one time a king, at another a tyrant. A king, when it looks to honorable things, cares for the safety of the body committed to it, and commands it nothing base, nothing sordid. But when it is uncontrolled, greedy, dainty, it passes into a name detestable and dire, and becomes a tyrant; then ungoverned passions take it up and press upon it — passions that at first, indeed, rejoice, as a populace is wont to rejoice, vainly gorged on a largess that will do it harm, and to handle what it cannot swallow.

Quoniam hac similitudine usus sum, perseverabo: animus noster modo rex est, modo tyrannus. Rex, cum honesta intuetur, salutem commissi sibi corporis curat, et illi nihil imperat turpe, nihil sordidum. Ubi vero inpotens, cupidus, delicatus est, transit in nomen detestabile ac dirum et fit tyrannus; tunc illum excipiunt adfectus inpotentes et instant, qui initio quidem gaudent, ut solet populus largitione nocitura frustra plenus, et quae non potest haurire, contrectat.

But when the disease has eaten its strength away more and more and the delights have gone down into the marrow and sinews, then, glad at the sight of the very things by which it has, through excessive greed, made itself useless, in place of its own pleasures it keeps the spectacle of others’ — a purveyor of lusts and feasts, the use of which it has taken from itself by heaping them upon itself. Nor is it so pleasant to it to abound in delights as it is bitter that it does not pass all that array through gullet and belly, that it does not wallow with the whole herd of catamites and women; and it grieves that a great part of its happiness, shut out by the narrowness of the body, lies idle.

Cum vero magis ac magis vires morbus exedit et in medullas nervosque descendere deliciae, conspectu eorum, quibus se nimia aviditate inutilem reddidit, laetus, pro suis voluptatibus habet alienarum spectaculum, sumministrator libidinum festisque, quarum usum sibi ingerendo abstulit. Nec illi tam gratum est abundare iucundis quam acerbum, quod non omnem illum apparatum per gulam ventremque transmittit, quod non cum omni exoletorum feminarumque turba convolutatur, maeretque, quod magna pars suae felicitatis exclusa corporis angustiis cessat.

For is not the madness in this, my Lucilius — that none of us thinks himself mortal, that none thinks himself frail? Nay, in this: that none of us thinks himself one! Look at our kitchens and the cooks running to and fro among so many fires; do you think it is one belly that is provided for, for which food is made ready with so great an uproar? Look at our wine-stores and the storehouses full of the vintages of many ages; do you think it is one belly that is provided for, for which the wines of so many consulships and regions are shut away? Look in how many places the earth is turned, how many thousands of tenants plough and dig; do you think it is one belly that is provided for, for which sowing is done both in Sicily and in Africa?

Numquid enim, mi Lucili, in hoc furor est, quod nemo nostrum mortalem se cogitat, quod nemo imbecillum? In illo, quod nemo nostrum unum esse se cogitat! Aspice culinas nostras et concursantis inter tot ignes cocos; unum videri putas ventrem, cui tanto tumultu comparatur eibus cibus? Aspice veteraria nostra et plena multorum saeculorum vindemiis horrea; unum putas videri ventrem, cui tot consulum regionumque vina cluduntur? Aspice, quot locis terra vertatur, quot millia colonorum arent, fodiant; unum videri putas ventrem, cui et in Sieilia Sicilia et in Africa seritur?

We shall be sound, and shall covet in measure, if each man counts himself, and at the same time measures his body, and knows how it can hold neither much nor for long. Yet nothing will profit you so much toward temperance in all things as the frequent thought of life’s brief span, and of this span as uncertain; whatever you do, look back to death. Farewell.

Sani erimus et modica concupiscemus, si unusquisque se numeret, metiatur simul corpus, sciat, quam nec multum eapere capere nec diu possit. Nihil tamen aeque tibi profuerit ad temperantiam omnium rerum quam frequens cogitatio brevis aevi et huius incerti; quidquid facies, respice ad mortem. Vale.

I do not want you to be too anxious about words and composition, my Lucilius; I have greater things for you to care about. Seek what to write, not how; and this itself, not so as to write, but so as to feel, so that you may apply more to yourself what you have felt and, as it were, set your seal upon it. Whosever speech you see fretted and polished, know that his soul too is no less taken up with petty things.

Nimis anxium esse te circa verba et compositionem, mi Lucili, nolo; habeo maiora, quae cures. Quaere, quid scribas, non quemadmodum; et hoc ipsum, non ut scribas, sed ut sentias, ut illa, quae senseris, magis adplices tibi et velut signes. Cuiuscumque orationem videris sollicitam et politam, scito animum quoque non minus esse pusillis occupatum.

The great man speaks more loosely and with more assurance; whatever he says has more confidence than care. You know those spruce young men, glossy in beard and hair, just out of the bandbox; you would hope nothing brave from them, nothing solid. Speech is the dress of the soul: if it is trimmed round and rouged and worked by hand, it shows that the man too is not sincere and has something broken in him. Trimness is no manly ornament.

Magnus ille remissius loquitur et securius; quaecumque dicit, plus habent fiduciae quam curae. Nosti comptulos iuvenes, barba et coma nitidos, de capsula totos; nihil ab illis speraveris forte, nihil solidum. Oratio cultus animi est: si circumtonsa est et fucata et manu facta, ostendit illum quoque non esse sincerum et habere aliquid fracti. Non est ornamentum virile concinnitas.

If it were permitted us to look into the soul of a good man, oh what a beautiful face we should see, how holy, how shining from a magnificent calm — here justice, there courage shining, here temperance and prudence! Besides these, frugality and self-restraint and endurance and liberality and courtesy and — who would believe it? — that good so rare in a man, humanity, would pour their splendor upon it. Then foresight, with elegance, and, out of these, magnanimity most eminent — how much grace, good gods, how much weight and gravity they would add to it! How great would its authority be, joined with charm! No one would call it lovable who did not at the same time call it venerable.

Si nobis animum boni viri liceret inspicere, o quam pulchram faciem, quam sanctam, quam ex magnifico placidoque fulgentem videremus, hinc iustitia, illinc fortitudine, hinc temperantia prudentiaque lucentibus! Praeter has frugalitas et continentia et tolerantia et liberalitas comitasque et—quis credat?—in homine rarum humanitas bonum, splendorem illi suum adfunderent. Tunc providentia cum elegantia et ex istis magnanimitas eminentissima quantum, di boni, decoris illi, quantum ponderis gravitatisque adderent! Quanta esset cum gratia auctoritas! Nemo illam amabilem, qui non simul venerabilem diceret.

If anyone saw this face, loftier and more shining than is wont to be seen among human things, would he not stop, struck dumb as at the meeting of a divinity, and silently pray that it be lawful to have seen it? Then, drawn on by the very kindness of its countenance calling him forth, he would worship and entreat; and after long contemplating it — far overtopping, raised above the measure of the things wont to be looked on among us, with eyes burning with something mild yet none the less with a living fire — then at last, in awe and astonishment, he would send forth that saying of our Virgil:

Si quis viderit hanc faciem altiorem fulgentioremque quam cerni inter humana consuevit, nonne velut numinis occursu obstupefactus resistat et, ut fas sit vidisse, tacitus precetur? Tum evocante ipsa vultus benignitate productus adoret ac supplicet, et diu contemplatus multum extantem superque mensuram solitorum inter nos aspici elatam, oculis mite quiddam, sed nihilominus vivido igne flagrantibus, tunc deinde illam Vergili nostri vocem verens atque attonitus emittat?

O by what name shall I call you, maiden? For your face is not mortal, nor does your voice sound as a man’s. Be gracious, whoever you are, and lighten our toil.

O quam te memorem, virgo? Namque haut tibi vultus Mortalis nec vox hominem sonat. Sis felix, nostrumque leves quaecumque laborem.

No one, I say, would not burn with love of it, if it fell to us to see it; for as it is, many things get in the way and beat back our sight either with too much splendor or hold it in obscurity. But if, just as the eyes’ sight is wont to be sharpened and cleared by certain medicines, so we were willing to free the soul’s sight from its impediments, we shall be able to perceive virtue even buried in the body, even with poverty set against it, even with lowliness and infamy lying in the way. We shall discern, I say, that beauty, however covered by squalor.

Nemo, inquam, non amore eius arderet, si nobis illam videre contingeret; nunc enim multa obstrigilant et aciem nostram aut splendore nimio repercutiunt aut obscuro retinent. Sed si, quemadmodum visus oculorum quibusdam medicamentis acui solet et repurgari, sic nos aciem animi liberare inpedimentis voluerimus, poterimus perspicere virtutem etiam obrutam corpore, etiam paupertate opposita, etiam humilitate et infamia obiacentibus, Cernemus, inquam, pulchritudinem illam quamvis sordido obtectam.

Again, in the same way, we shall perceive wickedness and the lethargy of a wretched soul, however much the splendor of radiant riches around it impedes, and the false light — on this side of honors, on that of great powers — beats upon the beholder.

Rursus aeque malitiam et aerumnosi animi veternum perspiciemus, quamvis multus circa divitiarum radiantium splendor inpediat et intuentem hinc honorum, illinc magnarum potestatium falsa lux verberet.

Then it will be granted us to understand how contemptible are the things we admire, most like children, to whom every plaything is precious; for to their parents, and no less to their brothers, they prefer necklaces bought for a small coin. What, then, is the difference between us and them, as Ariston says, except that we go mad over pictures and statues — fools at a dearer rate? Them the smooth pebbles found on the shore, with some variety to them, delight; us the veining of huge columns, whether fetched from the Egyptian sands or from the wastes of Africa to bear up some colonnade or a dining-hall roomy enough for a whole people.

Tunc intellegere nobis licebit, quam contemnenda miremur, simillimi pueris, quibus omne ludicrum in pretio est; parentibus quippe nec minus fratribus praeferunt parvo aere empta monilia. Quid ergo inter nos et illos interest, ut Ariston ait, nisi quod nos circa tabulas et statuas insanimus carius inepti? Illos reperti in litore calculi leves et aliquid habentes varietatis delectant, nos ingentium maculae columnarum, sive ex Aegyptiis harenis sive ex Africae solitudinibus advectae porticum aliquam vel capacem populi cenationem ferunt.

We marvel at walls overlaid with thin marble, though we know what it is that is hidden. We impose on our own eyes; and when we have flooded our ceilings with gold, what else do we rejoice at but a lie? For we know that under that gold foul timber lies hidden. And it is not only over walls or panelled ceilings that the thin ornament is stretched; the happiness of all those men you see walking on high is gold-leaf. Look closely, and you will know how much evil lies under that thin membrane of dignity.

Miramur parietes tenui marmore inductos, cum sciamus, quale sit quod absconditur. Oculis nostris inponimus, et cum auro tecta perfudimus, quid aliud quam mendacio gaudemus? Scimus enim sub illo auro foeda ligna latitare. Nec tantum parietibus aut lacunaribus ornamentum tenue praetenditur; omnium istorum, quos incedere altos vides, bratteata felicitas est. Inspice, et scies, sub ista tenui membrana dignitatis quantum mali iaceat.

This very thing that holds so many magistrates, so many judges — that makes both magistrates and judges — money, since it began to be held in honor, the true honor of things has fallen; and, become merchants and wares by turns, we ask not what each thing is, but at how much. We are dutiful for a price, undutiful for a price, and we follow honorable things as long as there is some hope in them, ready to cross over to the contrary if crimes will promise more.

Haec ipsa res, quae tot magistratus, tot iudices detinet, quae et magistratus et iudices facit, pecunia, ex quo in honore esse coepit, verus rerum honor cecidit, mercatoresque et venales in vicem facti quaerimus non quale sit quidque, sed quanti; ad mercedem pii sumus, ad mercedem impii, et honesta, quamdiu aliqua illis spes inest, sequimur, in contrarium transituri, si plus scelera promittent.

Our parents made us admire gold and silver, and the craving poured into our tender years has settled the deeper and grown with us. Then the whole people, at odds in other things, agrees in this: this they look up to, this they wish for their own, this they dedicate to the gods as though it were the greatest of human things, when they want to seem grateful. Finally, morals are brought to this pass: that poverty is a curse and a reproach, despised by the rich, hated by the poor.

Admirationem nobis parentes auri argenti que fecerunt, et teneris infusa cupiditas altius sedit crevitque nobiscum. Deinde totus populus in alia discors in hoc convenit; hoc suspiciunt, hoc suis optant, hoc dis velut rerum humanarum maximum, cum grati videri volunt, consecrant. Denique eo mores redacti sunt, ut paupertas maledicto probroque sit, contempta divitibus, invisa pauperibus.

Then come the songs of the poets, to set a torch under our passions, in which riches are praised as the one ornament and glory of life. Nothing better do the immortal gods seem able either to give or to possess.

Accedunt deinde carmina poetarum, quae adfectibus nostris facem subdant, quibus divitiae velut unicum vitae decus ornamentumque laudantur. Nihil illis melius nec dare videntur di immortales posse nec habere.

The palace of the Sun rose high on lofty columns, bright with flashing gold. Golden was the axle, golden the pole, golden the rim of the topmost wheel, and silver the rank of spokes.

Regia Solis erat sublimibus alta columnis Clara micante auro. Aureus axis erat, temo aureus, aurea summae Curvatura rotae, radiorum argenteus ordo.

Let me be called the worst, so I be called rich. Whether a man is rich we all ask; no one, whether good. They ask not why or whence — only what you have. Everywhere each man was worth as much as he had. What is shameful for us to have, you ask? Nothing. Either rich I choose to live, or poor to die. He dies well, whoever dies while turning a profit. Money, the vast good of the human race, to which neither a mother’s pleasure can be equal, nor a coaxing child’s, nor a father hallowed by his deserts; if anything so sweet shines in the face of Venus, deservedly she stirs the loves of gods and men.

Sine me vocari pessimum, ut dives vocer. An dives, omnes quaerimus, nemo, an bonus. Non quare et unde, quid habeas, tantum rogant. Ubique tanti quisque, quantum habuit, fuit. Quid habere nobis turpe sit quaeris? Nihil. Aut dives opto vivere aut pauper mori. Bene moritur, quisquis moritur dum lucrum facit. Pecunia, ingens generis humani bonum, Cui non voluptas matris aut blandae potest Par esse prolis, non sacer meritis parens; Tam dulce si quid Veneris in vultu micat, Merito illa amores caelitum atque hominum movet.

When these last verses had been spoken in a tragedy of Euripides, the whole people rose with one impulse to throw out both the actor and the play, until Euripides himself sprang into the midst, asking that they wait and see what end the worshipper of gold would make. In that play Bellerophon was paying the penalty that each man pays in his own.

Cum hi novissimi versus in tragoedia Euripidis pronuntiati essent, totus populus ad eiciendum et actorem et carmen consurrexit uno impetu, donec Euripides in medium ipse prosilivit petens, ut expectarent viderentque, quem admirator auri exitum faceret. Dabat in illa fabula poenas Bellerophontes, quas in sua quisque dat.

For no greed is without penalty, although it is penalty enough in itself. O how much weeping, how much toil it exacts! How wretched it is in its longings, how wretched in what it has won! Add the daily anxieties that rack each man in proportion to his holding. Money is possessed with greater torment than it is sought. How they groan over losses, which both fall heavily and seem heavier than they are! Finally, though fortune take nothing from them, whatever is not gained is counted a loss.

Nulla enim avaritia sine poena est, quamvis satis sit ipsa poenarum. O quantum lacrimarum, quantum laborum exigit! Quam misera desiderat esse, quam misera e partis est! Adice cotidianas sollicitudines, quae pro modo habendi quemque discruciant. Maiore tormento pecunia possidetur quam quaeritur. Quantum damnis ingemescunt, quae et magna incidunt et videntur maiora! Denique ut illis fortuna nihil detrahat, quidquid non adquiritur, damnum est.

“But men call that man happy and rich, and pray to attain as much as he possesses.” I confess it. What then? Do you think any are of a worse condition than those who have both misery and envy? Would that those about to pray for riches would take counsel with the rich! Would that those about to seek honors would take counsel with the ambitious and with those who have attained the highest rank of dignity! Surely they would have changed their prayers — while meanwhile those very men take up new ones, having condemned the old. For there is no one whom his own good fortune satisfies, even if it comes at a run. They complain both of their counsels and of their advancements, and always prefer what they have left behind.

At felicem illum homines et divitem vocant et consequi optant, quantum ille possidet. Fateor. Quid ergo? Tu ullos esse condicionis peioris existimas quam qui habent et miseriam et invidiam? Utinam qui divitias optaturi essent, cum divitibus deliberarent! Utinam honores petituri cum ambitiosis et summum adeptis dignitatis statum! Profecto vota mutassent, cum interim illi nova suscipiunt, cum priora damnaverint. Nemo enim est, cui felicitas sua, etiam si cursu venit, satis faciat. Queruntur et de consiliis et de processibus suis maluntque semper quae reliquerunt.

And so philosophy will furnish you this, than which I think nothing greater: that you will never repent of yourself. To this so solid a happiness, which no storm shakes, words aptly woven and a speech flowing gently will not bring you. Let them go as they will, provided the soul keep its own composure, provided it be great and careless of opinions and, for the very things that displease others, pleasing to itself — a soul that reckons its progress by its life and judges that it knows just so much as it neither covets nor fears. Farewell.

Itaque hoc tibi philosophia praestabit, quo equidem nihil maius existimo: numquam te paenitebit tui. Ad hanc tam solidam felicitatem, quam tempestas nulla concutiat, non perducent te apte verba contexta et oratio fluens leniter. Eant, ut volent, dum animo compositio sua constet, dum sit magnus et opinionum securus et ob ipsa, quae aliis displicent, sibi placens, qui profectum suum vita aestimet et tantum scire se iudicet, quantum non cupit quantum non timet. Vale.

Whether it is better to have moderate passions or none has often been asked. Our people drive them out, the Peripatetics moderate them. I do not see how any mean of a disease can be healthful or useful. Do not fear; I take away nothing of those things you do not wish to be denied you. I will show myself easy and indulgent toward the things you cling to and think either necessary to life or useful or pleasant; I will take away the vice. For when I have forbidden you to crave, I will permit you to will, so that you may do those same things undismayed, with surer judgment, and feel the very pleasures more keenly; why should they not reach you the more, if you command them, than if you serve them?

Utrum satius sit modicos habere adfectus an nullos, saepe quaesitum est. Nostri illos expellunt, Peripatetici temperant. Ego non video, quomodo salubris esse aut utilis possit ulla mediocritas morbi. Noli timere; nihil corum eorum, quae tibi non vis negari, eripio. Facilem me indulgentemque praebebo rebus, ad quas tenetis et quas aut necessarias vitae aut utiles aut iucundas putas; detraham vitium. Nam cum tibi cupere interdixero, velle permittam, ut eadem illa intrepidus facias, ut certiore consilio, ut voluptates ipsas magis sentias; quidni ad te magis perventurae sint, si illis imperabis, quam si servies?

“But it is natural,” you say, “that I be tortured by longing for a friend; grant a right to tears so justly falling. It is natural to be touched by men’s opinions and saddened by adverse ones; why would you not permit me this so honorable dread of a bad opinion?” No vice is without its patron; none but has a modest and pardonable beginning, but from this it pours out more widely. You will not get it to cease, if you have permitted it to begin.

Sed naturale est, inquis, ut desiderio amici torquear; da ius lacrimis tam iuste cadentibus. Naturale est opinionibus hominum tangi et adversis contristari; quare mihi non permittas hunc tam honestum malae opinionis metum? Nullum est vitium sine patrocinio; nulli non initium verecundum est et exorabile, sed ab hoc latius funditur. Non obtinebis, ut desinat, si incipere permiseris.

Every passion is weak at first. Then it rouses itself and gathers strength as it goes on; it is more easily shut out than driven out. Who denies that all passions flow from a kind of natural source? Nature charged us with the care of ourselves, but when you have indulged this too far, it is a vice. Nature mixed pleasure into necessary things, not that we should seek it, but that the addition of it should make grateful to us the things without which we cannot live; let it come by its own right — it is luxury. Therefore let us resist them as they enter, since, as I said, they are more easily not admitted than got out. “Permit me,” you say, “to grieve to some degree, to fear to some degree”; but that “to some degree” is drawn out far, and does not take its end where you wish.

Inbecillus est primo omnis adfectus. Deinde ipse se concitat et vires, dum procedit, parat; excluditur facilius quam expellitur. Quis negat omnis adfectus a quodam quasi naturali fluere principio? Curam nobis nostri natura mandavit, sed huic ubi nimium indulseris, vitium est. voluptatem natura necessariis rebus admiscuit, non ut illam peteremus, sed ut ea, sine quibus non possumus vivere, grata nobis illius faceret accessio; suo veniat iure, luxuria est. Ergo intrantibus resistamus, quia facilius, ut dixi, non recipiuntur quam exeunt. Aliquatenus, inquis, dolere, aliquatenus timere permitte; sed illud aliquatenus longe producitur nec ubi vis, accipit finem.

For the wise man it is safe not to guard himself anxiously, and he will stop his tears and his pleasures where he will; for us, because going back is not easy, it is best not to go forward at all.

Sapienti non sollicite custodire se tutum est, et lacrimas suas et voluptates ubi volet sistet; nobis quia non est regredi facile, optimum est omnino non progredi.

Elegantly, it seems to me, did Panaetius answer a certain young man who asked whether the wise man would love. “About the wise man,” he said, “we shall see; for me and you, who are still far from the wise man, it is not to be risked that we fall into a thing agitated, ungoverned, made over to another, cheap in its own eyes. For if it does not spurn us, we are inflamed by its kindness; if it has scorned us, we are kindled by its pride. An easiness of love harms as much as a difficulty: by easiness we are caught, with difficulty we struggle.” And so, conscious of our own weakness, let us keep still. Let us commit a weak soul neither to wine nor to beauty nor to flattery nor to any things that draw us coaxingly.

Eleganter mihi videtur Panaetius respondisse adulescentulo cuidam quaerenti, an sapiens amaturus esset. De sapiente, inquit, videbimus; mihi et tibi, qui adhuc a sapiente longe absumus, non est committendum, ut incidamus in rem commotam, inpotentem, alteri emancupatam, vilem sibi. Sive enim non respuit, humanitate eius inritamur, sive contempsit, superbia accendimur. Aeque facilitas amoris quam difficultas nocet; facilitate capimur, cum difficultate certamus. Itaque conscii nobis inbecillitatis nostrae quiescamus. Nec vino infirmum animum committamus nec formae nec adulationi nec ullis rebus blande trahentibus.

What Panaetius answered the man asking about love, this I say of all the passions. As far as we can, let us draw back from the slippery; even on dry ground we stand none too bravely.

Quod Panaetius de amore quaerenti respondit, hoc ego de omnibus adfectibus dico. Quantum possumus, nos a lubrico recedamus; in sicco quoque parum fortiter stamus.

You will meet me here with that common cry against the Stoics: “You promise too great things, you prescribe too hard ones. We are little men; we cannot deny ourselves everything. We will grieve, but a little; we will crave, but with measure; we will be angry, but we will be appeased.” Do you know why we cannot do these things?

Occurres hoc loco mihi illa publica contra Stoicos voce: Nimis magna promittitis, nimis dura praecipitis. Nos homunciones sumus, omnia nobis negare non possumus. Dolebimus, sed parum; concupiscemus, sed temperate; irascemur, sed placabimur. Scis, quare non possumus ista?

Because we do not believe we can. Nay, by Hercules, there is something else in the matter: because we love our vices, we defend them, and prefer to excuse them than to shake them off. Nature has given man strength enough, if we use it, if we gather our forces and rouse them all for ourselves — at the least, not against ourselves. Unwillingness is the cause; inability is the pretext. Farewell.

Quia nos posse non credimus. Immo mehercules aliud est in re: vitia nostra quia amamus, defendimus et malumus excusare illa quam excutere. Satis natura homini dedit roboris, si illo utamur, si vires nostras colligamus ac totas pro nobis, certe non contra nos concitemus. Nolle in causa est, non posse praetenditur. Vale.

You will brew me much trouble and, all unknowing, push me into a great lawsuit and vexation, you who set me such little questions, in which I can neither dissent from our people with my goodwill safe nor agree with my conscience safe. You ask whether it is true, what pleases the Stoics, that wisdom is a good but to be wise is not a good. First I will set out what the Stoics think; then I will dare to give my own opinion.

Multum mihi negotii concinnabis et, dum nescis, in magnam me litem ac molestiam inpinges, qui mihi tales quaestiunculas ponis, in quibus ego nec dissentire a nostris salva gratia nec consentire salva conscientia possum. Quaeris, an verum sit, quod Stoicis placet, sapientiam bonum esse, sapere bonum non esse. Primum exponam, quid Stoicis videatur; deinde tunc dicere sententiam audebo.

It pleases our people that what is good is a body, because what is good acts: whatever acts is a body. What is good profits; but it must do something in order to profit; if it does, it is a body. They say that wisdom is a good; it follows that they must call it corporeal too.

Placet nostris, quod bonum est, corpus esse, quia quod bonum est, facit: quidquid facit, corpus est. Quod bonum est, prodest. Faciat autem aliquid oportet, ut prosit; si facit, corpus est. Sapientiam bonum esse dicunt; sequitur, ut necesse sit illam corporalem quoque dicere.

But they do not think that to-be-wise is of the same condition. It is incorporeal, and an accident of another thing — that is, of wisdom; and so it neither does anything nor profits. “What then?” he says. “Do we not say it is good to be wise?” We do say it, referring it to that on which it depends — that is, to wisdom itself.

At sapere non putant eiusdem condicionis esse. Incorporale est et accidens alteri, id est sapientiae; itaque nec facit quidquam nec prodest. Quid ergo? inquit, non dicimus, bonum est sapere? Dicimus referentes ad id, ex quo pendet, id est ad ipsam sapientiam.

Hear what is answered to these men by others, before I begin to withdraw and take my seat on the other side. “In that way,” they say, “not even to live happily is a good.” Willing or unwilling, they must answer that the happy life is a good, but to live happily is not a good.

Adversus hos quid ab aliis respondeatur, audi, antequam ego incipio secedere et in alia parte considere. Isto modo, inquiunt, nec beate vivere bonum est. velint nolint, respondendum est beatam vitam bonum esse, beate vivere bonum non esse.

Even now this too is set against our people: “You wish to be wise; therefore to be wise is a thing to be sought. If it is a thing to be sought, it is good.” Our people are forced to twist their words and to slip one syllable into “to be sought,” which our language does not allow to be inserted. I will add it, if you allow. “That is to-be-sought (expetendum) which is good; that is sought-after (expetibile) which falls to us when we have attained the good. It is not sought as a good, but, the good being sought, it comes in besides.”

Etiamnunc nostris illud quoque opponitur: vultis sapere. Ergo expetenda res est sapere. Si expetenda res est, bona est. Coguntur nostri verba torquere et unam syllabam expetendo interponere, quam sermo noster inseri non sinit. Ego illam, si pateris, adiungam. Expetendum est, inquiunt, quod bonum est: expetibile, quod nobis contingit, cum bonum consecuti sumus. Non petitur tamquam bonum, sed petito bono accedit.

I do not feel the same, and I judge that our people come down to this because they are held by their first bond and may not change their formula. We are wont to grant much to the presumption of all men, and with us it is an argument of truth that a thing seems so to all. So, among other things, we conclude that gods exist from this: that an opinion about the gods is implanted in all, and there is no nation anywhere so cast out beyond laws and customs that it does not believe in some gods. When we discourse about the eternity of souls, the consensus of men — either fearing or worshipping the powers below — has no light weight with us. I use this public persuasion: you will find no one who does not think both wisdom and to-be-wise a good.

Ego non idem sentio et nostros iudico in hoc descendere, quia iam primo vinculo tenentur et mutare illis formulam non licet. Multum dare solemus praesumptioni omnium hominum, et apud nos veritatis argumentum est aliquid omnibus videri. Tamquam deos esse inter alia hoc colligimus, quod omnibus insita de dis opinio est nec ulla gens usquam est adeo extra leges moresque proiecta, ut non aliquos deos credat. Cum de animarum aeternitate disserimus, non leve momentum apud nos habet consensus hominum aut timentium inferos aut colentium. Utor hac publica persuasione: neminem invenies, qui non putet et sapientiam bonum et sapere.

I will not do what the conquered are wont, and appeal to the people; let us begin to clash with our own arms. What befalls something — is it outside that to which it befalls, or in that to which it befalls? If it is in that to which it befalls, it is as much a body as that to which it befalls. For nothing can befall without touch; what touches is a body. If it is outside, then, after it had befallen, it withdrew. What withdrew has motion. What has motion is a body. You expect me to say that running is not one thing and to-run another, nor heat one thing and to-be-hot another, nor light one thing and to-shine another; I grant these are different, but not of a different lot.

Non faciam, quod victi solent, ut provocem ad populum; nostris incipiamus armis confligere. Quod accidit alicui, utrum extra id, cui accidit, est an in eo, cui accidit? Si in eo est, cui accidit, tam corpus est quam illud, cui accidit. Nihil enim accidere sine tactu potest; quod tangit, corpus est. Si extra est, posteaquam acciderat, recessit. Quod recessit, motum habet. Quod motum habet, corpus est. Speras me dicturum non esse aliud cursum, aliud currere, nec aliud calorem, aliud calere, nec aliud lucem, aliud lucere; concedo ista alia esse, sed non sortis alterius.

If health is indifferent, then to be healthy is indifferent; if beauty is indifferent, then to be beautiful. If justice is a good, then to be just. If baseness is an evil, then to be base is an evil — just as much, by Hercules, as, if sore-eyedness is an evil, to be sore-eyed is also an evil. That you may know this, neither can be without the other. He who is wise, is wise; he who is wise, is wise. So far is it from being possible to doubt whether this is such as that, that to some both seem one and the same.

Si valetudo indifferens est, et valere indifferens est; si forma indifferens est, et formonsum esse. Si iustitia bonum est, et iustum esse. Si turpitudo malum est, et turpem esse malum est, tam mehercules quam, si lippitudo malum est, lippire quoque malum est. Hoc ut scias, neutrum esse sine altero potest. Qui sapit, sapiens est; qui sapiens est, sapit. Adeo non potest dubitari, an quale illud sit, tale hoc sit, ut quibusdam utrumque unum videatur atque idem.

But this I would gladly ask: since all things are either evil or good or indifferent, in what number is to-be-wise? They deny it is a good; an evil it surely is not; it follows that it is a middle thing. But that we call middle and indifferent which can fall to a bad man as much as to a good — such as money, beauty, nobility. This, to-be-wise, can fall to none but a good man; therefore it is not indifferent. And yet neither is it an evil, since it cannot fall to a bad man; therefore it is a good. What none but a good man has is a good. To-be-wise none but a good man has; therefore it is a good.

Sed illud libenter quaesierim: cum omnia aut mala sint aut bona aut indifferentia, sapere in quo numero sit? Bonum negant esse, malum utique non est; sequitur ut medium sit. Id autem medium atque indifferens vocamus, quod tam malo contingere quam bono possit, tamquam pecunia, forma, nobilitas. Hoc, ut sapiat, contingere nisi bono non potest; ergo indifferens non est. Atqui ne malum quidem est, quod contingere malo non potest; ergo bonum est. Quod nisi bonus non habet, bonum est. Sapere non nisi bonus habet; ergo bonum est.

“It is an accident,” he says, “of wisdom.” This, then, which you call to-be-wise — does it make wisdom, or undergo it? Either way it is a body. For both what is made and what makes is a body; and if it is a body, it is a good. For one thing only was lacking to it, to keep it from being a good — that it was incorporeal.

Accidens est, inquit, sapientiae. Hoc ergo, quod vocas sapere, utrum facit sapientiam an patitur? Utroque modo corpus est. Nam et quod fit et quod facit, corpus est; si corpus est, bonum est. Unum enim illi deerat, quominus bonum esset, quod incorporale erat.

It pleases the Peripatetics that there is no difference between wisdom and to-be-wise, since in either of them the other is present too. For do you think anyone is wise except him who has wisdom? Do you think anyone who is wise does not have wisdom?

Peripateticis placet nihil interesse inter sapientiam et sapere, cu in utrolibet eorum et alterum sit. Numquid enim quemquam existimas sapere nisi qui sapientiam habet? Numquid quemquam, qui sapit, non putas habere sapientiam?

The old dialecticians distinguish these; from them the division has come down to the Stoics. Of what kind it is, I will tell you. A field is one thing, to have a field another — why not? since to-have-a-field belongs to the haver, not to the field. So wisdom is one thing, to-be-wise another. You will grant, I think, that these are two: that which is had, and he who has it; wisdom is had, he who is wise has it. Wisdom is a mind perfected, or brought to the highest and best; for it is the art of life. What is to-be-wise? I cannot say a perfected mind, but that which falls to one who has a perfected mind; so the one is a good mind, the other, as it were, the having of a good mind.

Dialectici veteres ista distinguunt; ab illis divisio usque ad Stoicos venit. Qualis sit haec, dicam. Aliud est ager, aliud agrum habere, quidni? Cum habere agrum ad habentem, non ad agrum pertineat. Sic aliud est sapientia, aliud sapere. Puto concedes duo esse haec, id, quod habetur, et eum, qui habet; habetur sapientia, habet qui sapit. Sapientia est mens perfecta vel ad summum optimumque perducta. Ars enim vitae est. Sapere quid est? Non possum dicere mens perfecta, sed id quod contingit perfectam mentem habenti; ita alterum est mens bona, alterum quasi habere mentem bonam.

“There are,” he says, “natures of bodies — as, this is a man, this a horse. These are then attended by motions of the soul that make statements about bodies. These have something proper to themselves and drawn off from bodies — as, ‘I see Cato walking.’ Sense shows this, the soul has believed it. What I see is a body, on which I have bent both eyes and soul. I then say: ‘Cato walks.’ It is not a body,” he says, “that I now utter, but a certain statement about a body, which some call a thing-uttered, some a thing-stated, some a thing-said. So when we say ‘wisdom’ we understand something corporeal; when we say ‘he is wise’ we speak about a body. And it makes the greatest difference whether you name him or speak about him.”

Sunt, inquit, naturae corporum, tamquam hic homo est, hic equus. Has deinde sequuntur motus animorum enuntiativi corporum. Hi habent proprium quiddam et a corporibus seductum, tamquam video Catonem ambulantem. Hoc sensus ostendit, animus credidit. Corpus est, quod video, cui et oculos intendi et animum. Dico deinde: Cato ambulat. Non corpus, inquit, est, quod nunc loquor, sed enuntiativum quiddam de corpore, quod alii effatum vocant, alii enuntiatum, alii dictum. Sic cum dicimus sapientiam, corporale quiddam intellegimus; cum dicimus sapit, de corpore loquimur. Plurimum autem interest, utrum illum dicas an de illo.

Let us suppose, for the present, that these are two — for I do not yet pronounce what seems good to me — what hinders that it be indeed something different, yet none the less a good? I was saying a little before that a field is one thing, to have a field another. Why not? For he who has is of one nature, what is had of another. That is earth, this is a man. But in the matter we treat of, both are of the same nature: both he who has wisdom, and wisdom itself.

Putemus in praesentia ista duo esse,—nondum enim, quid mihi videatur, pronuntio,—quid prohibet, quominus aliud quidem sit, sed nihilominus bonum? Dicebam paulo ante aliud esse agrum, aliud habere agrum. Quidni? In alia enim natura est qui habet, in alia quod habetur. Illa terra est, hic homo est. At in hoc, de quo agitur, eiusdem naturae sunt utraque, et qui habet sapientiam, et ipsa.

Besides, there what is had is one thing, he who has it another; here in the same person is both what is had and he who has it. A field is possessed by law, wisdom by nature. The one can be alienated and handed to another, the other does not depart from its owner. There is no reason, then, for you to compare unlike things with one another.

Praeterea illic aliud est, quod habetur, alius, qui habet; hic in eodem est et quod habetur et qui habet. Ager iure possidetur, sapientia natura. Ille abalienari potest et alteri tradi, haec non discedit a domino. Non est itaque quod compares inter se dissimilia. Coeperam dicere posse ista duo esse et tamen utraque bona, tamquam sapientia et sapiens duo sunt et utrumque bonum esse concedis. Quomodo nihil obstat, quominus et sapientia bonum sit et habens sapientiam, sic nihil obstat, quominus et sapientia bonum sit et habere sapientiam, id est sapere.

I want to be wise for this — that I may be wise. What then? Is not that a good, without which the other is not a good either? You at least say that wisdom, if it be given without use, is not to be accepted. What is the use of wisdom? To-be-wise; this is the most precious thing in it, which once taken away, it becomes superfluous. If tortures are evils, to be tortured is an evil — so much so that those would not be evils if you took away what follows. Wisdom is the disposition of a perfected mind, to-be-wise the use of a perfected mind. How can the use of that be not a good, which without use is not a good?

Ego in hoc volo sapiens esse, ut sapiam. Quid ergo? Non est id bonum, sine quo nec illud bonum est? Vos certe dicitis sapientiam, si sine usu detur, accipiendam non esse. Quid est usus sapientiae? Sapere; hoc est in illa pretiosissimum, quo detracto supervacua fit. Si tormenta mala sunt, torqueri malum est, adeo quidem, ut illa non sint mala, si quod sequitur detraxeris. Sapientia habitus perfectae mentis est, sapere usus perfectae mentis. Quomodo potest usus eius bonum non esse, quae sine usu bonum non est?

I ask you whether wisdom is to be sought; you confess it. I ask whether the use of wisdom is to be sought; you confess it — for you say you would not accept it if you were forbidden to use it. What is to be sought is a good. To-be-wise is the use of wisdom, as to speak is of eloquence, as to see is of the eyes. Therefore to-be-wise is the use of wisdom; but the use of wisdom is to be sought; therefore to-be-wise is to be sought. If it is to be sought, it is a good.

Interrogo te, an sapientia expetenda sit; fateris. Interrogo, an usus sapientiae expetendus sit; fateris; negas enim te illam recepturum, si uti ea prohibearis. Quod expetendum est, bonum est. Sapere sapientiae usus est, quomodo eloquentiae eloqui, quomodo oculorum videre. Ergo sapere sapientiae usus est, usus autem sapientiae expetendus est; sapere ergo expetendum est. Si expetendum est, bonum est.

For a long time now I condemn myself, who imitate those men while I accuse them, and spend words on an open matter. For to whom can it be doubtful that, if heat is an evil, to be hot is an evil? If cold is an evil, to be cold an evil? If life is a good, to live a good? All those things are around wisdom, not in it; but in it itself we must dwell.

Olim ipse me damno, qui illos imitor, dum accuso, et verba apertae rei impendo. Cui enim dubium potest esse, quin si aestus malum est, et aestuare malum sit? Si algor malum est, malum sit algere? Si vita bonum est, et vivere bonum sit? Omnia ista circa sapientiam, non in ipsa sunt. At nobis in ipsa commorandum est.

Even if it pleases one to wander somewhat, it has ample and spacious retreats: let us ask about the nature of the gods, about the nourishment of the stars, about these so various courses of the heavenly bodies — whether our affairs are moved by their motions, whether from there comes the impulse to the bodies and souls of all, whether even the things called chance are bound by a fixed law and nothing in this world rolls on sudden or void of order. These have now withdrawn from the forming of morals, but they lift the soul and raise it to the greatness of the very things it handles; whereas those of which I was speaking a little before lessen and depress it, and do not, as you think, sharpen it, but wear it thin.

Etiam si quid e vagari libet, amplos habet illa spatiososque secessus: de deorum natura quaeramus, de siderum alimento, de his tam variis stellarum discursibus, an ad illarum motus nostra moveantur, an corporibus omnium animisque illinc impetus veniat, an et haec, quae fortuita dicuntur, certa lege constricta sint nihilque in hoc mundo repentinum aut expers ordinis volutetur. Ista iam a formatione morum recesserunt, sed levant animum et ad ipsarum, quas tractat, rerum magnitudinem attollunt; haec vero, de quibus paulo ante dicebam, minuunt et deprimunt nec, ut putatis, exacuunt, sed extenuant.

I beseech you, do we wear out so necessary a care, owed to greater and better things, on a matter I know not whether false, but certainly useless? What will it profit me to know whether wisdom is one thing, to-be-wise another? What will it profit me to know that the one is a good, the other not? I will act rashly, I will take the hazard of this wish: may wisdom fall to you, to-be-wise to me; we shall be equal.

Obsecro vos, tam necessariam curam maioribus melioribusque debitam in re nescio an falsa, certe inutili terimus? Quid mihi profuturum est scire, an aliud sit sapientia, aliud sapere? Quid mihi profuturum est scire illud bonum esse, hoc non esse? Temere me geram, subibo huius voti aleam: tibi sapientia, mihi sapere contingat; pares erimus.

Rather do this: show me the road by which I may arrive at those things. Tell me what I should shun, what seek, by what studies I may steady my slipping soul, how I may drive far from me the things that strike and drive me from across my path, how I may be a match for so many evils, how I may remove the calamities that have burst in upon me, and those into which I myself have burst. Teach me how to bear hardship without a groan of my own, good fortune without a groan from another, how not to wait for the last and necessary thing but myself, when it shall seem good, to flee away.

Potius id age, ut mihi viam monstres, qua ad ista perveniam. Dic, quid vitare debeam, quid adpetere, quibus animum labantem studiis firmem, quemadmodum quae me ex transverso feriunt aguntque, procul a me repellam, quomodo par esse tot malis possim, quomodo istas calamitates removeam, quae ad me inruperunt, quomodo illas, ad quas ego inrupi. Doce, quomodo feram aerumnam sine gemitu meo, felicitatem sine alieno, quomodo ultimum ac necessarium non expectem, sed ipsemet, cum visum erit, profugiam.

Nothing seems to me more shameful than to wish for death. For if you wish to live, why do you wish to die? And if you do not wish to, why do you ask of the gods what they gave you at birth? For that you die some time is laid down even against your will; that you die when you will is in your own hand. The one is necessary to you, the other allowed.

Nihil mihi videtur turpius quam optare mortem. Nam si vis vivere, quid optas mori? Sive non vis, quid deos rogas, quod tibi nascenti dederunt? Nam ut quandoque moriaris, etiam invito positum est, ut cum voles, in tua manu est. Alterum tibi necesse est, alterum licet.

A most shameful opening — by Hercules, of an eloquent man — I read these days: “So,” he says, “may I die as soon as possible.” Madman, you are wishing for what is already yours. “So may I die as soon as possible.” Perhaps you have grown old amid these cries. Otherwise, what is the delay? No one holds you; escape by whatever way seems good. Choose any part of nature you wish, and bid it furnish you your way out. These, surely, are the elements by which this world is administered — water, earth, breath. All of these are as much causes of living as roads to death.

Turpissimum his diebus principium diserti mehercules viri legi: Ita. inquit, quamprimum moriar. Homo demens, optas rem tuam. Ita quamprimum moriar. Fortasse inter has voces senex factus es. Alioqui quid in mora est? Nemo te tenet; evade, qua visum est. Elige quamlibet rerum naturae partem, quam tibi praebere exitum iubeas. Haec nempe sunt elementa, quibus hic mundus administratur, aqua, terra, spiritus. Omnia ista tam causae vivendi sunt quam viae mortis.

“So may I die as soon as possible.” This “as soon as possible” — what do you want it to be? What day do you set for it? It can happen sooner than you wish. These are the words of a feeble mind, catching at pity by this curse; he does not wish to die who wishes for it. Ask the gods for life and health; if it has pleased you to die, this is the fruit of death — to cease to wish.

Ita quamprimum moriar: quamprimum istud quid esse vis? Quem illi diem ponis? Citius fieri quam optas, potest. Inbecillae mentis ista sunt verba et hac detestatione misericordiam captantis; non vult mori qui optat. Deos vitam et salutem roga; si mori placuit, hic mortis est fructus, optare desinere.

These things, my Lucilius, let us handle; with these let us form the soul. This is wisdom, this is to-be-wise — not to drive an empty subtlety about with idle little disputes. Fortune has set you so many questions, and you have not yet solved them; do you already quibble? How foolish it is, when you have received the signal for battle, to fence with the air! Put away those play-weapons; you need the deciding ones. Tell me by what method no sadness, no dread may trouble the soul, by what method I may pour out this weight of hidden cravings. Let something be done.

Haec, mi Lucili, tractemus, his formemus animum. Hoc est sapientia, hoc est sapere, non disputatiunculis inanibus subtilitatem vanissimam agitare. Tot quaestiones fortuna tibi posuit, nondum illas solvisti; iam cavillaris? Quam stultum est, cum signum pugnae acceperis, ventilare. Remove ista lusoria arma; decretoriis opus est. Dic, qua ratione nulla animum tristitia, nulla formido perturbet, qua ratione hoc secretarum cupiditatium pondus effundam. Agatur aliquid.

“Wisdom is a good, to-be-wise is not a good”; so it comes about that we are said not to be wise, that this whole pursuit is laughed at as busied with superfluities. What if you knew that this too is asked, whether future wisdom is a good? For what doubt is there, I beg you, that the granary does not yet feel the harvest to come, nor does boyhood grasp the coming youth by any strength or vigor? To the sick man, meanwhile, the health to come is of no profit, no more than the rest that will follow after many months refreshes one running and wrestling now.

Sapientia bonum est, sapere non est bonum; sic fit, ut negemur sapere, ut hoc totum studium derideatur tamquam operatum supervacuis. Quid, si scires etiam illud quaeri, an bonum sit futura sapientia? Quid enim dubi est, oro te, an nec messem futuram iam sentiant horrea nec futuram adulescentiam pueritia viribus aut ullo robore intellegat? Aegro interim nil ventura sanitas prodest, non magis quam currentem luctantemque post multos secuturum menses otium reficit.

Who does not know that by this very fact a thing that is future is not a good — because it is future? For what is good certainly profits. Only present things can profit; if it does not profit, it is not a good; if it profits, it already is. I am going to be wise; this will be a good when I am; meanwhile it is not. A thing must first be, then be of a certain quality.

Quis nescit hoc ipso non esse bonum id, quod futurum est, quia futurum est? Nam quod bonum est, utique prodest. Nisi praesentia prodesse non possunt; si non prodest, bonum non est; si prodest, iam est. Futurus sum sapiens; hoc bonum erit, cum fuero, interim non est. Prius aliquid esse debet, deinde quale esse.

How, I ask you, is that which is as yet nothing already a good? And how would you rather have it proved to you that a thing is not, than if I have said, “It is future”? For it is plain that what is coming has not yet come. Spring will follow: I know it is now winter. Summer will follow: I know it is not summer. I have the strongest argument that a thing is future — that it is not yet present.

Quomodo, oro te, quod adhuc nihil est, iam bonum est? Quomodo autem tibi magis vis probari non esse aliquid, quam si dixero: futurum est? Nondum enim venisse apparet quod venit, ver secuturum est: scio nunc hiemem esse. Aestas secutura est: scio aestatem non esse. Maximum argumentum habeo nondum praesentis futurum esse.

I shall be wise, I hope, but meanwhile I am not wise. If I had that good, I would already be free of this evil. It is future that I be wise; from this you may understand that I am not yet wise. I cannot at once be both in that good and in this evil; the two do not come together, nor are evil and good at once in the same man.

Sapiam, spero, sed interim non sapio. Si illud bonum haberem, iam hoc carerem malo. Futurum est, ut sapiam; ex hoc licet nondum sapere me intellegas. Non possum simul et in illo bono et in hoc malo esse; duo ista non coeunt nec apud eundem sunt una malum et bonum.

Let us run past these most ingenious trifles and hurry to the things that will bring us some help. No one who anxiously summons the midwife to his daughter in labor reads through the edict and the program of the games. No one who runs to the burning of his own house studies the draught-board, to learn how the cornered piece may get out.

Transcurramus sollertissimas nugas et ad illa, quae nobis aliquam opem sunt latura, properemus. Nemo, qui obstetricem parturienti filiae sollicitus accersit, edictum et ludorum ordinem perlegit. Nemo, qui ad incendium domus suae currit, tabulam latrunculariam prospicit, ut sciat, quomodo alligatus exeat calculus.

But, by Hercules, all things are announced to you from every side — the burning of your house, the danger of your children, the siege of your country, the plundering of your goods; add to that shipwrecks and earthquakes and whatever else can be feared; and amid these, pulled this way and that, do you have leisure for nothing but things that amuse the soul? You ask what difference there is between wisdom and to-be-wise? You tie knots and loose them, with so great a mass hanging over your head?

At mehercule omnia tibi undique nuntiantur, et incendium domus et periculum liberorum et obsidio patriae et bonorum direptio; adice isto naufragia motusque terrarum et quicquid aliud timeri potest; inter ista districtus rebus nihil aliud quam animum oblectantibus vacas? Quid inter sapientiam et sapere intersit, inquiris? Nodos nectis ac solvis tanta mole impendente capiti tuo?

Nature has not given us a time so generous and ample that any of it should be free to be wasted. And see how much is lost even to the most diligent: from one, his own health has taken something, from another the health of his own people; necessary business has seized one part, public business another; sleep divides life with us. Out of this time so narrow and swift and carrying us off, what good is it to send the greater part into the void?

Non tam benignum ac liberate tempus natura nobis dedit, ut aliquid ex illo vacet perdere. Et vide, quam multa etiam diligentissimis pereant: aliud valetudo sua cuique abstulit, aliud suorum; aliud necessaria negotia, aliud publica occupaverunt; vitam nobiscum dividit somnus. Ex hoc tempore tam angusto et rapido et nos auferente quid iuvat maiorem partem mittere in vanum?

Add now that the soul grows used to amusing itself rather than healing itself, and to make of philosophy an entertainment, when it is a remedy. What the difference is between wisdom and to-be-wise, I do not know; I know it makes no difference to me whether I know these things or not. Tell me: when I have learned what the difference is between wisdom and to-be-wise, shall I be wise? Why, then, do you detain me among the words of wisdom rather than among its works? Make me braver, make me more secure, make me a match for fortune, make me its superior. I can be its superior, if I direct to that end everything I learn. Farewell.

Adice nunc, quod adsuescit animus delectare se potius quam sanare et philosophiam oblectamentum facere, cum remedium sit. Inter sapientiam et sapere quid intersit nescio; scio mea non interesse, sciam ista an nesciam. Dic mihi: cum quid inter sapientiam et sapere intersit didicero, sapiam? Cur ergo potius inter vocabula me sapientiae detines quam inter opera? Fac me fortiorem, fac securiorem, fac fortunae parem, fac superiorem. Possum autem superior esse, si derexero eo omne, quod disco. Vale.

You demand more frequent letters from me. Let us compare accounts; you will not be solvent. It had indeed been agreed that yours should come first — that you should write, I write back. But I will not be difficult; I know you may be trusted well. So I will pay in advance, and not do what Cicero, that most eloquent man, bids Atticus do: namely, that even if he has no matter, he write whatever comes to his lips.

Exigis a me frequentiores epistulas. Rationes conferamus; solvendo non eris. Convenerat quidem, ut tua priora essent, tu scriberes, ego rescriberem. Sed non ero difficilis; bene credi tibi scio. Itaque in anticessum dabo nec faciam, quod Cicero, vir disertissimus, facere Atticum iubet, ut etiam si rem nullam habebit, quod in buccam venerit, scribat.

There can never be lacking what I might write, even passing over all those things that fill Cicero’s letters: which candidate is in trouble; who fights with another’s strength, who with his own; who seeks the consulship in reliance on Caesar, who on Pompey, who on his money-chest; how hard a usurer Caecilius is, from whom his kinsmen cannot dislodge a coin at less than twelve per cent. It is better to handle one’s own evils than another’s, to shake oneself out and see for how many things one is a candidate — and not to cast one’s vote for them.

Numquam potest deesse, quod scribam, ut omnia illa, quae Ciceronis implent epistulas, transeam: quis candidatus laboret; quis alienis, quis suis viribus pugnet; quis consulatum fiducia Caesaris, quis Pompei, quis arcae petat; quam durus sit faenerator Caecilius, a quo minoris centesimis propinqui nummum movere non possint. Sua satius est mala quam aliena tractare, se excutere et videre, quam multarum rerum candidatus sit, et non suffragari.

This, my Lucilius, is the excellent thing, this the secure and free thing: to seek nothing and to pass by all the elections of fortune. How pleasant do you think it is, when the tribes have been summoned and the candidates hang in suspense in their temples — one promising money, another working through an agent, another wearing out with kisses the hands of those whose hand, once elected, he will refuse to let them touch, while all, thunderstruck, await the herald’s voice — to stand at leisure and watch that fair, neither buying anything nor selling?

Hoc est, mi Lucili, egregium, hoc securum ac liberum, nihil petere et tota fortunae comitia transire. Quam putas esse iucundum tribubus vocatis, eum candidati in templis suis pendeant et alius nummos pronuntiet, alius per sequestrem agat, alius eorum manus osculis conterat, quibus designatus contingendam manum negaturus est, omnes attoniti vocem praeconis exspectent, stare otiosum et spectare illas nundinas nec ementem quicquam nec vendentem?

By how much greater a joy does that man enjoy who looks untroubled not on the praetorian or consular elections, but on those great ones in which some seek yearly honors, others perpetual powers, others the prosperous outcomes of wars and triumphs, others riches, others marriages and children, others the safety of themselves and their own! How great a thing of soul it is to be the only one who seeks nothing, who entreats no one, and who says: “I have nothing to do with you, Fortune. I do not put myself at your disposal. I know that with you Catos are rejected, Vatiniuses made. I ask nothing.” This is to make one’s fortune a private thing.

Quanto hic maiore gaudio fruitur, qui non praetoria aut consularia comitia securus intuetur, sed magna illa, in quibus alii honores anniversarios petunt, alii perpetuas potestates, alii bellorum eventus prosperos triumphosque, alii divitias, alii matrimonia ac liberos, alii salutem suam suorumque! Quanti animi res est solum nihil petere, nulli supplicare, et dicere: Nihil mihi tecum, fortuna. Non facio mei tibi copiam. Scio apud te Catones repelli, Vatinios fieri. Nihil rogo. Hoc est privatam facere fortunam.

It is allowed, then, to write these things to one another in turn, and ever to draw this material out fresh, as we look round on so many thousands of restless men who, to attain something pestilential, strive through evils toward evil and seek what they will soon flee, or even disdain.

Licet ergo haec in vicem scribere et hanc semper integram egerere materiam circumspicientibus tot milia hominum inquieta, qui ut aliquid pestiferi consequantur, per mala nituntur in malum petuntque mox fugienda aut etiam fastidienda.

For to whom, once he has attained it, has that been enough which, while he longed for it, seemed too much? Happiness is not, as men think, greedy, but petty; and so it satiates no one. You believe those things lofty because you lie far from them; but to him who has reached them they are low. I lie, if he does not still seek to climb; that which you think the summit is a step.

Cui enim adsccuto adsecuto satis fuit, quod optanti nimium videbatur? Non est, ut existimant homines, avida felicitas, sed pusilla; itaque neminem satiat. Tu ista credis excelsa, quia longe ab illis iaces; ei vero, qui ad illa pervenit, humilia sunt. Mentior, nisi adhuc quaerit escendere; istud, quod tu summum putas, gradus est.

But ignorance of the true afflicts all; deceived by rumors, they are carried as toward goods, then, having attained them and suffered much, they see that they are evils, or empty, or smaller than they had hoped. And the greater part marvels at things that deceive from a distance, and to the crowd good things pass for great ones.

Omnes autem male habet ignorantia veri; tamquam ad bona feruntur decepti rumoribus, deinde mala esse aut inania aut minora quam speraverint, adepti ac multa passi vident. Maiorque pars miratur ex intervallo fallentia, et vulgo bona pro magnis sunt.

Lest this befall us too, let us ask what the good is. Its interpretation has been various; one has expressed it one way, another another. Some define it thus: the good is what invites souls, what calls them to itself. To this it is at once objected: what if it invites, but to ruin? You know how many evils are alluring. The true and the truth-like differ from each other; so what is good is joined to the true, for it is not good unless it is true. But what invites and entices to itself is truth-like: it filches, it solicits, it draws on.

Hoc ne nobis quoque eveniat, quaeramus, quid sit bonum, varia eius interpretatio fuit, alius illud aliter expressit. Quidam ita finiunt: bonum est quod invitat animos, quod ad se vocat. Huic statim opponitur: quid, si invitat quidem, sed in perniciem? Scis, quam multa mala blanda sint. verum et veri simile inter se differunt; ita quod bonum est, vero iungitur; non est enim bonum nisi verum est. At quod invitat ad se et adlicefacit, veri simile est; subripit, sollicitat, adtrahit.

Some have defined it thus: the good is what moves a seeking of itself, or what moves the impulse of a soul straining toward it. And to this the same is objected; for many things move the soul’s impulse that are sought to the seekers’ harm. Better those who defined it thus: the good is what moves the soul’s impulse toward itself according to nature, and is to be sought only when it has begun to be worth seeking. Now it is also honorable; for this is what is perfectly to be sought.

Quidam ita finierunt: bonum est, quod petitionem sui movet, vel quod impetum animi tendentis ad se movet. Et huic idem opponitur; multa enim impetum animi movent, quae petantur petentium malo. Melius illi, qui ita finierunt: bonum est, quod ad se impetum animi secundum naturam movet et ita demum petendum est, cum coepit esse expetendum. Iam et honestum est; hoc enim est perfecte petendum.

The very place reminds me to say what difference there is between the good and the honorable. They have something mixed and inseparable between them: a thing cannot be good unless there is something of the honorable in it, and the honorable is certainly good. What, then, is the difference between the two? The honorable is the perfect good, by which the happy life is filled out, by whose touch other things too become good.

Locus ipse me admonet, ut quid intersit inter bonum honestumque dicam. Aliquid inter se mixtum habent et inseparabile: nec potest bonum esse, nisi cui aliquid honesti inest, et honestum utique bonum est. Quid ergo inter duo interest? Honestum est perfectum bonum, quo beata vita completur, cuius contactu alia quoque bona fiunt.

What I mean is this: there are certain things neither good nor bad — such as military service, an embassy, a jurisdiction. When these have been administered honorably, they begin to be good, and pass from the doubtful into the good. The good is made by partnership with the honorable; the honorable is good of itself. The good flows from the honorable; the honorable is from itself. What is good could have been bad; what is honorable could not have been anything but good.

Quod dico, talest: sunt quaedam neque bona neque mala, tamquam militia, legatio, iurisdictio. Haec cum honeste administrata sunt, bona esse incipiunt et ex dubio in bonum transeunt. Bonum societate honesti fit, honestum per se bonum est. Bonum ex honesto fluit, honestum ex se est. Quod bonum est, malum esse potuit; quod honestum est, nisi bonum esse non potuit.

Some have given this definition: the good is what is according to nature. Attend to what I say: what is good is according to nature; but not, straightaway, that what is according to nature is also good. Many things indeed agree with nature, but are so petty that the name of good does not befit them; for they are slight and contemptible. No good, however small, is contemptible; for as long as it is tiny, it is not good; when it has begun to be good, it is not tiny. Whence is the good recognized? If it is perfectly according to nature.

Hanc quidam finitionem reddiderunt: bonum est, quod secundum naturam est. Attende, quid dicam: quod bonum, est secundum naturam; non protinus quod secundum naturam est, etiam bonum est. Multa naturae quidem consentiunt, sed tam pusilla sunt, ut non conveniat illis boni nomen. Levia enim sunt, contemnenda. Nullum est minimum contemnendum bonum; nam quamdiu exiguum est, bonum non est; cum bonum esse coepit, non est exiguum. Unde adcognoscitur bonum? Si perfecte secundum naturam est.

“You confess,” you say, “that what is good is according to nature; this is its property. You confess that other things too are according to nature, but are not good. How, then, is that one good, when these are not? How does it arrive at a different property, when the chief thing is common to both — to be according to nature?”

Fateris, inquis, quod bonum est, secundum naturam esse; haec eius proprietas est. Fateris et alia secundum naturam quidem esse, sed bona non esse. Quomodo ergo illud bonum est, cum haec non sint? Quomodo ad aliam proprietatem pervenit, cum utrique praecipuum illud commune sit, secundum naturam esse?

By its very magnitude, of course. Nor is this new, that certain things are changed by growing. He was an infant; he became a youth, and his property becomes different. For the one is irrational, the other rational. Certain things by increase go out not only into something greater, but into something other.

Ipsa scilicet magnitudine. Nec hoc novum est, quaedam crescendo mutari. Infans fuit; factus est pubes, alia eius proprietas fit. Ille enim inrationalis est, hic rationalis. Quaedam incremento non tantum in maius exeunt, sed in aliud.

“A thing is not made other,” he says, “by being made greater. Whether you fill a flask or a cask with wine makes no difference; in both the property of wine is the same. A small weight of honey and a great do not differ in flavor.” You put forward unlike examples; for in those the quality is the same: however much they are increased, it remains.

Non fit, inquit, aliud quod maius fit. Utrum lagonam an dolium impleas vino, nihil refert; in utroque proprietas vini est. Et exiguum mellis pondus et magnum sapore non differt. Diversa ponis exempla; in istis enim eadem qualitas est; quamvis augeantur, manet.

Certain things, when enlarged, endure in their own kind and their own property. Certain things, after many increases, the last addition at length turns about, and stamps on them a new condition, other than that in which they were. One stone makes the arch — the one that wedged the leaning sides and bound them by coming between. Why does the last addition, though tiny, do the most? Because it does not increase, but completes.

Quaedam amplificata in suo genere et in sua proprietate perdurant. Quaedam post multa incrementa ultima demum vertit adiectio et novam illis aliamque quam in qua fuerunt, condicionem inprimit. Unus lapis facit fornicem, ille, qui latera inclinata cuneavit et interventu suo vinxit. Summa adiectio quare plurimum facit vel exigua? Quia non auget, sed implet.

Certain things by advancing put off their former shape and pass into a new one. When the mind has long extended something and, wearied by following its magnitude, has begun to call it infinite, this has become far other than it was when it seemed great, but finite. In the same way we have thought of something as cut only with difficulty; at last, this difficulty growing, it is found uncuttable. So from that which was moved with difficulty and pain we have advanced to the immovable. By the same reasoning, something was according to nature; its magnitude carried it over into another property and made it good. Farewell.

Quaedam processu priorem exuunt formam et in novam transeunt. Ubi aliquid animus diu protulit et magnitudinem eius sequendo lassatus est, infinitum coepit vocari. Quod longe aliud factum est quam fuit, cum magnum videretur, sed finitum. Eodem modo aliquid difficulter secari cogitavimus; novissime crescente hac difficultate insecabile inventum est. Sic ab eo, quod vix et aegre movebatur, processimus ad inmobile. Eadem ratione aliquid secundum naturam fuit; hoc in aliam proprietatem magnitudo sua transtulit et bonum fecit. Vale.

Whenever I have found something, I do not wait until you say, “Share it.” I say it to myself. You ask what it is that I have found; open your lap, it is pure profit. I will teach you how you may become rich most quickly. How keenly you long to hear it! And not undeservedly; I will lead you by a short cut to the greatest riches. Yet you will need a creditor; that you may do business, you must contract a debt — but I do not want you to borrow through a go-between, I do not want the brokers to bandy your name about.

Quotiens aliquid inveni, non expecto, donec dicas in commune. Ipse mihi dico. Quid sit, quod invenerim quaeris; sinum laxa, merum lucrum est. Docebo, quomodo fieri dives celerrime possis. Quam valde cupis audire! nec inmerito; ad maximas te divitias conpendiaria ducam. Opus erit tamen tibi creditore; ut negotiari possis, aes alienum facias oportet, sed nolo per intercessorem mutueris, nolo proxenetae nomen tuum iactent.

I will give you a creditor ready to hand, that Catonian one: you will take a loan from yourself. However little it is, it will be enough, if we ask of ourselves whatever is lacking. For it makes no difference, my Lucilius, whether you do not desire or you have. The sum of the matter is the same in both: you will not be tortured. Nor do I prescribe that you deny anything to nature — she is stubborn, she cannot be conquered, she demands her own — but that whatever exceeds nature you know to be held on sufferance, not as necessary.

Paratum tibi creditorem dabo Catonianum illum, a te mutuum sumes. Quantulumcumque est, satis erit, si, quidquid deerit, id a nobis petierimus. Nihil enim, mi Lucili, interest, utrum non desideres an habeas. Summa rei in utroque eadem est: non torqueberis. Nec illud praecipio, ut aliquid naturae neges— contumax est, non potest vinci, suum poscit—sed ut quicquid naturam excedit, scias precarium esse, non necessarium.

I am hungry; I must eat. Whether this bread be plebeian or of fine flour matters nothing to nature; she wishes not the belly to be delighted, but filled. I am thirsty; whether this water be what I have drawn from the nearest pool or what I have packed in much snow that it may be chilled by a borrowed cold, matters nothing to nature. She bids this one thing, that thirst be quenched; whether the cup be golden or crystal or murrine or a Tiburtine beaker or a hollow hand, it matters not.

Esurio; edendum est. Utrum hic panis sit plebeius an siligineus, ad naturam nihil pertinet; illa ventrem non delectari vult, sed impleri. Sitio; utrum haec aqua sit, quam ex lacu proximo excepero, an ea, quam multa nive clusero, ut rigore refrigeretur alieno, ad naturam nihil pertinet. Illa hoc unum iubet, sitim extingui; utrum sit aureum poculum an crustallinum an murreum an Tiburtinus calix an manus concava, nihil refert.

Look to the end of all things, and you will dismiss the superfluous. Hunger calls me; let the hand be stretched to whatever is nearest; hunger itself has commended to me whatever I shall grasp.

Finem omnium rerum specta, et supervacua dimittes. Fames me appellat; ad proxima quaeque porrigatur manus; ipsa mihi commendavit quodcumque comprendero.

A hungry man despises nothing. What is it, then, that delighted me, you ask? It seems to me admirably said: “The wise man is the keenest seeker of natural riches.” “You present me,” you say, “with an empty dish. What is this? I had already got my money-bags ready. I was looking round on what sea I should launch myself as a trader, what state revenue I should farm, what wares I should fetch.” It is deceit, this — to teach poverty when you have promised riches. So you judge that man poor to whom nothing is lacking? “By his own benefit,” you say, “and that of his endurance, not of fortune.” Do you therefore not judge him rich, because his riches cannot fail? Which do you prefer — to have much, or enough?

Nihil contemnit esuriens. Quid sit ergo, quod me delectaverit quaeris? videtur mihi egregie dictum: sapiens divitiarum naturalium est quaesitor acerrimus. Inani me, inquis, lance muneras. Quid est istud? Ego iam paraveram fiscos. Circumspiciebam, in quod me mare negotiaturus inmitterem, quod publicum agitarem, quas arcesserem merces. Decipere est istud, docere paupertatem, cum divitias promiseris. Ita tu pauperem iudicas, cui nihil deest? Suo, inquis, et patientiae suae beneficio, non fortunae. Ideo ergo illum non iudicas divitem, quia divitiae eius desinere non possunt? Utrum mavis habere multum an satis?

He who has much desires more; which is proof that he does not yet have enough. He who has enough has attained what never fell to a rich man — an end. Or do you think these are not riches, because no one has been proscribed for their sake? Because for their sake no son, no wife, has thrust poison on anyone? Because in war they are safe? Because in peace they are unburdensome? Because it is neither dangerous to have them nor laborious to arrange them?

Qui multum habet, plus cupit; quod est argumentum nondum illum satis habere; qui satis habet, consecutus est, quod numquam diviti contigit, finem. An has ideo non putas esse divitias, quia propter illas nemo proscriptus est? Quia propter illas nulli venenum filius, nulli uxor inpegit? Quia in bello tutae sunt? Quia in pace otiosae? Quia nec habere illas periculosum est nec operosum disponere?

“But he has too little who merely does not freeze, does not hunger, does not thirst.” Jupiter has no more. Never is too little what is enough, and never is much what is not enough. After Darius and the Indians, Alexander is poor. Do I lie? He seeks what he may make his own, he searches unknown seas, he sends new fleets into the ocean and breaks through the very bars, so to speak, of the world. What is enough for nature is not enough for man.

At parum habet qui tantum non alget, non esurit, non sitit. Plus Iuppiter non habet. Numquam parum est quod satis est, et numquam multum est quod satis non est. Post Dareum et Indos pauper est Alexander. Mentior? Quaerit, quod suum faciat, scrutatur maria ignota, in oceanum classes novas mittit et ipsa, ut ita dicam, mundi claustra perrumpit. Quod naturae satis est, homini non est.

A man has been found who would covet something after everything; so great is the blindness of minds, and so great each man’s forgetfulness of his own beginnings once he has advanced. He, lately the master — and not without dispute — of an obscure corner, is made sad at having touched the end of the earth and being about to go home through a world of his own.

Inventus est qui concupisceret aliquid post omnia; tanta est caecitas mentium et tanta initiorum suorum unicuique, cum processit, oblivio. Ille modo ignobilis anguli non sine controversia dominus tacto fine terrarum per suum rediturus orbem tristis est.

Money has made no one rich; nay, on the contrary, it has struck into everyone a greater craving of itself. You ask what the cause of this is? He who has more begins to be able to have more. In sum, drag into the midst whomever you wish of those whose names are counted with Crassus and Licinus. Let him bring his rating, and reckon at once all he has and all he hopes; that man, if you believe me, is poor — if you believe him, he can be.

Neminem pecunia divitem fecit, immo contra nulli non maiorem sui cupidinem incussit. Quaeris, quae sit huius rei causa? Plus incipit habere posse, qui plus habet. Ad summam, quem voles mihi ex his, quorum nomina cum Crasso Licinoque numerantur, in medium licet protrahas. Adferat censum, et quicquid habet et quicquid sperat, simul computet; iste, si mihi credis, pauper est, si tibi, potest esse.

But this man, who has composed himself to what nature demands, is not only beyond the feeling of poverty, but beyond the fear of it. Yet, that you may know how hard it is to confine one’s affairs to the natural measure, this very man of whom we speak, whom you call poor, has something even of the superfluous.

At hic, qui se ad id, quod exigit natura, composuit, non tantum extra sensum est paupertatis, sed extra metum. Sed ut scias, quam difficile sit res suas ad naturalem modum coartare, hic ipse, quem circa dicimus, quem tu vocas pauperem, habet aliquid et supervacui.

But riches blind the people and turn it upon themselves, if much coin is carried out of some house, if much gold is even smeared on its roof, if the household is choice in its persons or conspicuous in dress. The happiness of all these men looks toward the public; but the man whom we have withdrawn both from the people and from fortune is happy within.

At excaecant populum et in se convertunt opes, si numerati multum ex aliqua domo effertur, si multum auri tecto quoque eius inlinitur, si familia aut corporibus electa aut spectabilis cultu est. Omnium istorum felicitas in publicum spectat; ille, quem nos et populo et fortunae subduximus, beatus introsum est.

For as to those men in whom occupied poverty has falsely usurped the name of riches, they have riches as we are said to have a fever, when it is the fever that has us. On the contrary, we are wont to say: “a fever holds him.” In the same way it must be said: “riches hold him.” Of nothing, then, would I rather warn you than of this, of which no one is warned enough: that you measure all things by natural desires, which can be satisfied either for nothing or for little; only do not mix vices into your desires.

Nam quod ad illos pertinet, apud quos falso divitiarum nomen invasit occupata paupertas, sic divitias habent, quomodo habere dicimur febrem, cum illa nos habeat. E contrario dicere solemus: febris illum tenet. Eodem modo dicendum est: divitiae illum tenent. Nihil ergo monuisse te malim quam hoc, quod nemo monetur satis, ut omnia naturalibus desideriis metiaris, quibus aut gratis satis fiat aut parvo; tantum miscere vitia desideriis noli.

When thirst burns your throat, do you ask for golden cups? When hungry, do you disdain everything but peacock and turbot?

Num tibi, cum fauces urit sitis, aurea quaeris Pocula? Num esuriens fastidis omnia praeter Pavonem rhombumque?

Hunger is not ambitious; it is content to leave off; with what it leaves off it does not much care. These are the torments of unhappy luxury: it seeks how, even after fullness, it may hunger; how it may not fill the belly but stuff it; how it may call back a thirst quenched by the first draught. And so Horace excellently denies that it matters to thirst with what cup, or by how elegant a hand, the water is served. For if you judge it to matter to you how long-haired the boy and how translucent the cup he holds out, you are not thirsty.

Ambitiosa non est fames, contenta desinere est; quo desinat, non nimis curat. Infelicis luxuriae ista tormenta sunt; quaerit, quemadmodum post saturitatem quoque esuriat, quemadmodum non impleat ventrem, sed farciat, quemadmodum sitim prima potione sedatam revocet. Egregie itaque Horatius negat ad sitim pertinere, quo poculo aqua aut quam eleganti manu ministretur. Nam si pertinere ad te iudicas, quam crinitus puer et quam perlucidum tibi poculum porrigat, non sitis.

Among the rest, nature has granted us this above all: that she has shaken fastidiousness out of necessity. Superfluities admit a choosing — “this is hardly seemly, that is hardly praised, this offends my eyes.” It was so arranged by that founder of the world, who prescribed for us the laws of living, that we should be safe, not dainty. For safety all things are ready and at hand; for delights all things are gathered wretchedly and anxiously.

Inter reliqua hoc nobis praestitit natura praecipuum, quod necessitati fastidium excussit. Recipiunt supervacua dilectum: hoc parum decens, illud parum laudatum, oculos hoc meos laedit. Id actum est ab illo mundi conditore, qui nobis vivendi iura discripsit, ut salvi essemus, non ut delicati. Ad salutem omnia parata sunt et in promptu, deliciis omnia misere ac sollicite conparantur.

Let us use, then, this benefit of nature, counting it among great things, and let us think that on no count has she deserved better of us than that whatever is desired out of necessity is taken without fastidiousness. Farewell.

Utamur ergo hoc naturae beneficio inter magna numerando et cogitemus nullo nomine melius illam meruisse de nobis, quam quia quicquid ex necessitate desidcratur desideratur, sine fastidio sumitur. Vale.

Your letter wandered through several little questions, but settled on one, and desires this to be unfolded: how the idea of the good and the honorable came to us. With others these two are different things; with us only divided.

Epistula tua per plures quaestiunculas vagata est, sed in una constitit et hanc expediri desiderat, quomodo ad nos boni honestique notitia pervenerit. Haec duo apud alios diversa sunt, apud nos tantum divisa.

What this means I will say. Some think the good is that which is useful; and so they put this name on riches and a horse and wine and a shoe; so cheap does the good become with them, and so far down into sordid things does it descend. They think honorable that for which the reckoning of right duty holds — a father’s old age dutifully cared for, a friend’s poverty relieved, a brave campaign, a prudent and measured opinion. We make these two, indeed, but out of one.

Quid sit hoc dicam. Bonum putant esse aliqui id, quod utile est; itaque hoc et divitiis et equo et vino et calceo nomen inponunt; tanta fit apud illos boni vilitas et adeo in sordida usque descendit. Honestum putant, cui ratio recti officii constat, tamquam pie curatam patris senectutem, adiutam amici paupertatem, fortem expeditionem, prudentem moderatamque sententiam. Nos ista duo quidem facimus, sed ex uno.

Nothing is good but what is honorable. What is honorable is certainly good. I judge it superfluous to add what difference there is between these, since I have often said it. This one thing I will say: nothing seems good to us which a man can also use badly. But you see how many use riches, nobility, strength badly. Now, then, I return to that of which you desire to be told: how the first idea of the good and the honorable came to us.

Nihil est bonum, nisi quod honestum est. Quod honestum, est utique bonum. Supervacuum iudico adicere, quid inter ista discriminis sit, cum saepe dixerim. Hoc unum dicam, nihil bonum nobis videri, quo quis et male uti potest. Vides autem divitiis, nobilitate, viribus quam multi male utantur. Nunc ergo ad id revertor, de quo desideras dici, quomodo ad nos prima boni honestique notitia pervenerit.

This nature could not teach us; she gave us the seeds of knowledge, she did not give knowledge. Some say that we fell upon the idea by chance — which is incredible — that the appearance of some virtue met someone by accident. To us it seems that observation gathered it, and the comparison of things often done with one another; by analogy our people judge both the honorable and the good to be understood. Since the Latin grammarians have given this word [analogy] citizenship, I do not think it ought to be condemned; I think it ought to be restored to its own city. So I will use it, not merely as received, but as familiar.

Hoc nos natura docere non potuit; semina nobis scientiae dedit, scientiam non dedit. Quidam aiunt nos in notitiam incidisse, quod est incredibile, virtutis alicui speciem casu occucurrisse. Nobis videtur observatio collegisse et rerum saepe factarum inter se conlatio, per analogian nostri intellectum et honestum et bonum iudicant. Hoc verbum cum Latini grammatici civitate donaverint, ego damnandum non puto, puto in civitatem suam redigendum. Utar ergo illo non tantum tamquam recepto, sed tamquam usitato.

What this analogy is, I will tell. We had known the health of the body; from this we conceived there to be some health of the soul too. We had known the strength of the body; from these we concluded there to be a strength of soul too. Certain kindly deeds, certain humane, certain brave, had struck us with wonder; these we began to admire as perfect. Beneath them lay many vices, which the appearance and brilliance of some conspicuous deed concealed; these we shut our eyes to. Nature bids us magnify things to be praised; everyone has carried glory beyond the truth; from these, then, we drew the appearance of a vast good.

Quae sit haec analogia, dicam. Noveramus corporis sanitatem; ex hac cogitavimus esse aliquam et animi. Noveramus vires corporis; ex his collegimus esse et animi robur. Aliqua benigna facta, aliqua humana, aliqua fortia nos obstupefecerant; haec coepimus tamquam perfecta mirari. Suberant illis multa vitia, quae species conspicui alicuius facti fulgorque celabat; haec dissimulavimus. Natura iubet augere laudanda, nemo non gloriam ultra verum tulit; ex his ergo speciem ingentis boni traximus.

Fabricius rejected the gold of King Pyrrhus and judged it greater than a kingdom to be able to despise a king’s wealth. The same man, when Pyrrhus’s doctor promised he would give the king poison, warned Pyrrhus to beware of treachery. It was the mark of the same soul not to be conquered by gold, not to conquer by poison. We admired that vast man, whom neither the king’s promises nor those against the king had bent — tenacious of a good example, which is most difficult, innocent in war, who believed there was some sin even against enemies, who, in the utmost poverty that he had made his glory, fled riches no otherwise than poison. “Live by my benefit, Pyrrhus,” he said, “and rejoice in what till now you grieved at — that Fabricius cannot be bought.”

Fabricius Pyrrhi regis aurum reppulit maiusque regno iudicavit regias opes posse contemnere. Idem medico Pyrrhi promittente venenum se regi daturum monuit Pyrrhum, caveret insidias. Eiusdem animi fuit auro non vinci, veneno non vincere. Admirati sumus ingentem virum, quem non regis, non contra regem promissa flexissent, boni exempli tenacem, quod difficillimum est, in bello innocentem, qui aliquod esse crederet etiam in hostes nefas, qui in summa paupertate, quam sibi decus fecerat, non aliter refugit divitias quam venenum. Vive, inquit, beneficio meo, Pyrrhe, et gaude quod adhuc dolebas, Fabricium non posse corrumpi.

Horatius Cocles alone filled the narrows of the bridge and bade his own return be cut off behind him, provided the way were taken from the enemy, and held out against those pressing on so long, until the torn-up beams sounded with a vast crash. After he looked back and felt his country to be out of danger by his own danger, “Let anyone who wishes,” he said, “come and follow me as I go thus,” and he cast himself headlong, and, no less anxious in that swift channel of the river to come out armed than to come out safe, keeping the honor of his victorious arms, he returned as safe as if he had come by the bridge.

Horatius Cocles solus implevit pontis angustias adimique a tergo sibi reditum, dummodo iter hosti auferretur, iussit et tam diu prementibus restitit, donec revulsa ingenti ruina tigna sonuerunt. Postquam respexit et extra periculum esse patriam periculo suo sensit, veniat, si quis vult, inquit, sic euntem sequi, iecitque se in praeceps et non minus sollicitus in illo rapido alveo fluminis ut armatus quam ut salvus exiret, retento armorum victricium decore tam tutus rediit, quam si ponte venisset.

These and such deeds showed us the image of virtue. I will add what may perhaps seem strange: sometimes evils have offered the appearance of the honorable, and the best has shone out from its contrary. For there are, as you know, vices bordering on the virtues, and even in the lost and base there is a likeness of the right; so the prodigal counterfeits the liberal, though it makes the greatest difference whether a man knows how to give or does not know how to keep. Many, I say, Lucilius, there are who do not give but throw away; I do not call a man liberal who is angry at his own money. Negligence imitates ease, rashness imitates courage.

Haec et eiusmodi facta imaginem nobis ostendere virtutis. Adiciam, quod mirum fortasse videatur: mala interdum speciem honesti optulere et optimum, ex contrario enituit. Sunt enim, ut scis, virtutibus vitia confinia, et perditis quoque ac turpibus recti similitudo est; sic mentitur prodigus liberalem, cum plurimum intersit, utrum quis dare sciat an servare nesciat. Multi, inquam, sunt, Lucili, qui non donant, sed proiciunt; non voco ego liberalem pecuniae suae iratum. Imitatur neglegentia facilitatem, temeritas fortitudinem.

This likeness has forced us to attend and to distinguish things near indeed in appearance, but in reality differing greatly; and, while we observed those whom an excellent deed had made conspicuous, to note who had done some thing with a noble soul and great impulse, but once. This man we saw brave in war, timid in the forum, bearing poverty spiritedly, infamy abjectly; we praised the deed, we despised the man.

Haec nos similitudo coegit attendere et distinguere specie quidem vicina, re autem plurimum inter se dissidentia, ac dum observamus eos, quos insignes egregium opus fecerat, adnotare, quis rem aliquam generoso animo fecisset et magno impetu, sed semel. Hunc vidimus in bello fortem, in foro timidum, animose paupertatem ferentem, humiliter infamiam; factum laudavimus, contempsimus virum.

Another we saw kind toward friends, temperate toward enemies, administering both public and private things piously and scrupulously; not failing him, in the things to be endured, patience; in the things to be done, prudence; we saw him, where one had to give, giving with full hand, where one had to labor, persistent and stubborn and lifting the body’s weariness with his soul. Besides, he was always the same and equal to himself in every act — by now not good by counsel, but brought by habit to such a point that he could not only act rightly but could not act except rightly. We understood that in him virtue was perfect.

Alium vidimus adversus amicos benignum, adversus inimicos temperatum, et publica et privata sancte ac religiose administrantem, non deesse ei in iis quae toleranda erant, patientiam, in iis quae agenda, prudentiam, vidimus, ubi tribuendum esset, plena manu dantem, ubi laborandum, pertinacem et obnixum et lassitudinem corporis animo sublevantem. Praeterea idem erat semper et in omni actu par sibi, iam non consilio bonus, sed more eo perductus, ut non tantum recte facere posset, sed nisi recte facere non posset. Intelleximus in illo perfectam esse virtutem.

This we divided into parts: cravings had to be reined in, fears pressed down, the things to be done foreseen, the things to be rendered distributed; we comprehended temperance, courage, prudence, justice, and gave to each its own duty. From what, then, did we come to understand virtue? Its order showed it to us, and its grace and constancy and the concord of all its actions with one another, and a greatness lifting itself above all things. From this was understood that happy life, flowing on a favorable course, wholly its own master.

Hanc in partes divisimus; oportebat cupiditates refrenari, metus comprimi, facienda provideri, reddenda distribui; conprehendimus temperantiam, fortitudinem, prudentiam, iustitiam et suum cuique dedimus officium. Ex quo ergo virtutem intelleximus? Ostendit illam nobis ordo eius et decor et constantia et omnium inter se actionum concordia et magnitudo super omnia efferens sese. Hinc intellecta est illa beata vita secundo defluens cursu, arbitrii sui tota.

How, then, did this very thing appear to us? I will tell. Never did that perfect man, who had attained virtue, curse fortune; never did he take what befell him sadly; believing himself a citizen of the universe and a soldier, he underwent his labors as if they were commanded. Whatever fell out, he did not spurn it as an evil borne to him by chance, but as if assigned to him. “This thing, whatever it is,” he said, “is mine; it is harsh, it is hard — in this very thing let us ply our work.”

Quomodo ergo hoc ipsum nobis apparuit? Dicam. Numquam vir ille perfectus adeptusque virtutem fortunae maledixit, numquam accidentia tristis excepit, civem esse se universi et militem credens labores velut imperatos subiit. Quicquid inciderat, non tamquam malum aspernatus est et in se casu delatum, sed quasi delegatum sibi. Hoc qualecumque est, inquit, meum est; asperum est, durum est, in hoc ipso navemus operam.

Necessarily, then, he appeared great, who never groaned at evils, never complained of his fate; he gave many an understanding of himself and, no otherwise than a light in darkness, shone out, and turned the minds of all toward himself, since he was placid and gentle, equally fair to things human and divine.

Necessario itaque magnus apparuit qui numquam malis ingemuit, numquam de fato suo questus est; fecit multis intellectum sui et non aliter quam in tenebris lumen effulsit advertitque in se omnium animos, cum esset placidus et lenis, humanis divinisque rebus pariter aequus.

He had a perfect soul, brought to its own summit, above which is nothing except the mind of god, from whom a part has flowed down even into this mortal breast. Which is never more divine than when it thinks of its own mortality, and knows that man is born for this — to discharge life — and that this body is not a home but a lodging, and a brief lodging at that, which must be left when you see yourself a burden to your host.

Habebat perfectum animum et ad summam sui adductum, supra quam nihil est nisi mens dei, ex quo pars et in hoc pectus mortale defluxit. Quod numquam magis divinum est, quam ubi mortalitatem suam cogitat et scit in hoc natum hominem, ut vita defungeretur, nec domum esse hoc corpus, sed hospitium, et quidem breve hospitium, quod relinquendum est, ubi te gravem esse hospiti videas.

The greatest argument, I say, my Lucilius, of a soul coming from a loftier seat, is if it judges these things in which it dwells low and narrow, if it does not fear to depart. For he knows whither he is to go out, who remembers whence he came. Do we not see by how many discomforts we are harassed, how ill this body suits us?

Maximum, inquam, mi Lucili, argumentum est animi ab altiore sede venientis, si haec, in quibus versatur, humilia iudicat et angusta, si exire non metuit. Scit enim, quo exiturus sit, qui unde venerit meminit. Non videmus quam multa nos incommoda exagitent, quam male nobis conveniat hoc corpus?

Now of the head, now of the belly, now of the chest and throat we complain. At one time the sinews vex us, at another the feet; now a flux, now a catarrh; sometimes there is too much blood, sometimes too little; from this side and that we are tried and driven out; this is wont to happen to those dwelling in another’s property.

Nunc de capite, nunc de ventre, nunc de pectore ac faucibus querimur. Alias nervi nos, alias pedes vexant, nunc deiectio, nunc destillatio, aliquando superest sanguis, aliquando deest; hinc atque illinc tcmptamur temptamur et expellimur; hoc evenire solet in alieno habitantibus.

But we, allotted a body so rotten, none the less set before ourselves eternal things, and, as far as human age can be stretched, so far do we take up with hope, content with no money, no power. What can be done more shameless than this, what more foolish? Nothing is enough for those about to die — nay, for those dying; for daily we stand nearer the last point, and toward that place whence we must fall every hour pushes us. See in how great a blindness our mind is!

At nos corpus tam putre sortiti nihilominus aeterna proponimus et in quantum potest aetas humana protendi, tantum spe occupamus, nulla contenti pecunia, nulla potentia. Quid hac re fieri impudcntius inpudentius, quid stultius potest? Nihil satis est morituris, immo morientibus; cotidie enim propius ab ultimo stamus, et illo, unde nobis cadendum est, hora nos omnis inpellit. vide in quanta caecitate mens nostra sit!

This which I call future is happening at this very moment, and a great part of it is already done — namely, what we have lived. But we err who fear the last day, when each day contributes as much to death. It is not the step at which we fail that makes the weariness, but that step declares it. The last day arrives at death; every day approaches it. It plucks us away, it does not snatch us up. Therefore the great soul, conscious of a better nature, takes pains indeed to bear itself honorably and industriously in this post where it is set, but judges none of the things around it to be its own, and uses them as things lent, a stranger and one hastening on.

Hoc quod futurum dico, cum maxime fit, et pars eius magna iam facta est, nam quod viximus. Erramus autem qui ultimum timemus diem, cum tantumdem in mortem singuli conferant. Non ille gradus lassitudinem facit, in quo deficimus, sed ille profitetur. Ad mortem dies extremus pervenit, accedit omnis. Carpit nos illa, non corripit. Ideo magnus animus conscius sibi melioris naturae dat quidem operam, ut in hac statione qua positus est, honeste se atque industrie gerat, ceterum nihil horum, quae circa sunt, suum iudieat iudicat, sed ut commodatis utitur, peregrinus et properans.

When we saw someone of this constancy, why should not the appearance of an uncommon nature come over us? Especially if, as I said, an evenness showed this greatness to be true. A true tenor endures; false things do not last. Some men are by turns Vatiniuses, by turns Catos; and now Curius is not stern enough for them, not poor enough Fabricius, not frugal enough, nor content with cheap things, Tubero; now they challenge Licinus in riches, Apicius in feasts, Maecenas in delights.

Cum aliquem huius videremus constantiae, quidni subiret nos species non usitatae indolis? Utique si hanc, ut dixi, magnitudinem veram esse ostendebat aequalitas. vero tenor permanet, falsa non durant. Quidam alternis Vatinii, alternis Catones sunt; et modo parum illis severus est Curius, parum pauper Fabricius, parum frugi et contentus vilibus Tubero; modo Licinum divitiis, Apicium cenis, Maeeenatem Maecenatem deliciis provocant.

He often had two hundred slaves, often ten; now of kings and tetrarchs, speaking all things grand; now “let me have a three-legged table and a shell of pure salt, and a toga that, however coarse, can keep off the cold.” Had you given a million to this thrifty man, content with little, in five days there was nothing left.

habebat saepe ducentos, Saepe decem servos; modo reges atque tetrarchas, Omnia magna loquens, modo sit mihi mensa tripes et Concha salis puri, toga quae defendere frigus Quamvis crassa queat; decies centena dedisses Huic parco, paucis contento; quinque diebus Nil erat.

Such men are these, like the one Horatius Flaccus describes — never the same, not even like himself; so far does he stray into the opposite. Did I say many? It is nearly true that all are so. No one does not daily change both his plan and his prayer. Now he wants to have a wife, now a mistress; now he wants to reign, now he behaves so that no slave could be more obsequious; now he spreads himself out to the point of envy, now he sinks and shrinks below the lowliness of those who truly lie abased; now he scatters money, now he snatches it.

Homines isti tales sunt, qualem hunc describit Horatius Flaccus, numquam eundem, ne similem quidem sibi; adeo in diversum aberrat. Multos dixi? Prope est, ut omnes sint. Nemo non cotidie et consilium mutat et votum. Modo uxorem vult habere, modo amicam, modo regnare vult, modo id agit, ne quis sit officiosior servus, modo dilatat se usque ad invidiam, modo subsidit et contrahitur infra humilitatem vere iacentium, nunc pecuniam spargit, nunc rapit.

So most of all is an imprudent soul convicted: one man comes forth, then another — and, than which I judge nothing baser, it is unequal to itself. Reckon it a great thing to play one man. But except the wise man, no one plays one; the rest of us are manifold. Now we shall seem to you thrifty and grave, now prodigal and vain. We change our mask again and again and take up one contrary to that we have put off. Demand this, then, of yourself: that, such as you have set yourself to show yourself, such you keep to the end. Bring it about that you can be praised; if not, that you can be recognized. Of someone you saw yesterday it may rightly be said, “Who is this?” — so great is the change. Farewell.

Sic maxime coarguitur animus inprudens; alius prodit atque alius et, quo turpius nihil iudico, impar sibi est. Magnam rem puta unum hominem agere. Praeter sapientem autem nemo unum agit, ceteri multiformes sumus. Modo frugi tibi videbimur et graves, modo prodigi et vani. Mutamus subinde personam et contrariam ei sumimus, quam exuimus. Hoc ergo a te exige, ut, qualem institueris praestare te, talem usque ad exitum serves. Effice ut possis laudari, si minus, ut adgnosci. De aliquo, quem here vidisti, merito dici potest: hic qui est? Tanta mutatio est. Vale.

You will pick a quarrel, I see, when I have set out to you today’s little question, in which we have stuck long enough. For again you will exclaim: “What has this to do with morals?” But exclaim — while I first set against you others to quarrel with, Posidonius and Archidemus; these will stand trial. Then I will say: not everything that is moral makes morals good.

Litigabis, ego video, cum tibi hodiernam quaestiunculam, in qua satis diu haesimus, exposuero. Iterum enim exclamabis: hoc quid ad mores? Sed exclama, dum tibi primum alios opponam, cum quibus litiges, Posidonium et Archidemum; hi iudicium accipient. Deinde dicam: non quicquid morale est, mores bonos facit.

One thing pertains to feeding a man, another to exercising him, another to clothing, another to teaching, another to delighting him. Yet all pertain to man, even if not all make him better. Morals are touched by different things in different ways: some correct and order them, some scrutinize their nature and origin.

Aliud ad hominem alendum pertinet, aliud ad exercendum, aliud ad vestiendum, aliud ad docendum, aliud ad delectandum. Omnia tamen ad hominem pertinent, etiam si non omnia meliorem eum faciunt. Mores aha aliter attingunt: quaedam illos corrigunt et ordinant, quaedam naturam eorum et originem scrutantur.

When I ask why nature brought forth man, why she preferred him to the other animals, do you judge that I have wandered far from morals? It is false. For how will you know what morals you should have, unless you have found what is best for man, unless you have inspected his nature? Only then will you understand what you must do, what avoid, when you have learned what you owe to your nature.

Cum quaero, quare hominem natura produxerit, quare praetulerit animalibus ceteris, longe me iudicas mores reliquisse? Falsum est. Quomodo enim scies, qui habendi sint, nisi quid homini sit optimum, inveneris, nisi naturam eius inspexeris? Tunc demum intelleges, quid faciendum tibi, quid vitandum sit, cum didiceris, quid naturae tuae debeas.

“I,” you say, “want to learn how I may crave less, fear less. Shake superstition out of me. Teach me that this thing called happiness is light and empty, and that one syllable is most easily added to it.” I will satisfy your desire, and will exhort the virtues and flog the vices. Though someone judge me too excessive and immoderate in this part, I will not cease to hunt down wickedness and to curb the most savage passions, to check pleasures bound to go over into pain, and to cry out against men’s prayers. Why not? Since we have prayed for the greatest of evils, and whatever we comfort men for has been born of congratulation.

Ego, inquis, volo discere, quomodo minus cupiam, minus timeam. Superstitionem mihi excute. Doce leve esse vanumque hoc, quod felicitas dicitur, unam illi syllabam facillime accedere. Desiderio tuo satis faciam, et virtutes exhortabor et vitia converberabo. Licet aliquis nimium inmoderatumque in hac parte me iudicet, non desistam persequi nequitiam et adfectus efferatissimos inhibere et voluptates ituras in dolorem compescere et votis opstrepere. Quidni? Cum maxima malorum optaverimus, et ex gratulatione natum sit quidquid adloquimur.

Meanwhile, permit me to shake out the things that seem somewhat more remote. We were asking whether all animals have a sense of their own constitution. That they do appears especially from this, that they move their limbs aptly and readily, no otherwise than as if trained for it. There is none that has not an agility of its own parts. The craftsman handles his instruments with ease, the steersman of the ship skillfully turns the rudder, the painter most quickly picks out the colors which, many and varied, he has set before himself to render the likeness, and passes between the wax and the work with easy face and hand; so the animal is mobile for every use of itself.

Interim permitte mihi ea, quae paulo remotiora videntur, excutere. Quaerebamus, an esset omnibus animalibus constitutionis suae sensus? Esse autem ex eo maxime apparet, quod membra apte et expedite movent non aliter quam in hoc erudita. Nulli non partium suarum agilitas est. Artifex instrumenta sua tractat ex facili, rector navis scite gubernaculum flectit, pictor colores, quos ad reddendam similitudinem multos variosque ante se posuit, celerrime denotat et inter ceram opusque facili vultu ac manu commeat; sic animal in omnem usum sui mobilest.

We are wont to marvel at skilled dancers, that their hand is ready for every signification of things and feelings, and the gesture keeps pace with the swiftness of words. What art furnishes to these, nature furnishes to those. No one moves his limbs with difficulty, no one hesitates in the use of himself. This they do as soon as they are born. They come forth with this knowledge; they are born trained.

Mirari solemus saltandi peritos, quod in omnem significationem rerum et adfectuum parata illorum est manus, et verborum velocitatem gestus adsequitur. Quod illis ars praestat, his natura. Nemo aegre molitur artus suos, nemo in usu sui haesitat. Hoc edita protinus faciunt. Cum hac scientia prodeunt; instituta nascuntur.

“Animals,” he says, “move their parts aptly for this reason, that if they moved them otherwise they would feel pain. So, as you say, they are compelled, and fear, not will, moves them to the right course.” Which is false. For slow are the things driven by necessity; agility belongs to things moved of their own accord. So far is the fear of pain from driving them to this, that they strain into the natural motion even when pain forbids.

Ideo, inquit, partes suas animalia apte movent, quia si aliter moverint, dolorem sensura sunt. Ita, ut vos dicitis, coguntur, metusque illa in rectum, non voluntas movet. Quod est falsum. Tarda enim sunt, quae necessitate inpelluntur, agilitas sponte motis est. Adeo autem non adigit illa ad hoc doloris timor, ut in naturalem motum etiam dolore prohibente nitantur.

So the infant who is learning to stand and growing used to bearing his own weight, as soon as he has begun to try his strength, falls and rises again, with weeping, so many times, until through pain he has trained himself to what nature demands. Certain animals of harder back, turned over, twist themselves so long and thrust out and slant their feet, until they are set back in their place. The tortoise on its back feels no torment, yet is restless with longing for its natural state, and does not cease to shake itself until it has stood on its feet.

Sic infans, qui stare meditatur et ferre se adsuescit, simul temptare vires suas coepit, cadit et cum fletu totiens resurgit, donec se per dolorem ad id, quod natura poscit, exercuit. Animalia quaedam tergi durioris inversa tam diu se torquent ac pedes exerunt et obliquant, donec ad locum reponantur. Nullum tormentum sentit supina tcstudo testudo, inquieta est tamen desiderio naturalis status nec ante desinit quatere se, quam in pedes constitit.

So all have a sense of their own constitution, and from this comes the so ready handling of their limbs; nor have we any greater sign that they come to life with this knowledge than that no animal is a novice in the use of itself.

Ergo omnibus constitutionis suae sensus est et inde membrorum tam expedita tractatio, nec ullum maius indicium habemus cum hac illa ad vivendum venire notitia, quam quod nullum animal ad usum sui rude est.

“The constitution,” he says, “is, as you say, the ruling part of the soul standing in a certain way toward the body. How does an infant understand a thing so intricate and subtle and scarcely to be set forth even by you? All animals would have to be born dialecticians, to understand a definition obscure to a great part of men in the toga.” What you object would be true, if I were saying that the definition of the constitution is understood by animals, not the constitution itself.

Constitutio, inquit, est, ut vos dicitis, principale animi quodam modo se habens erga corpus. Hoc tam perplexum et subtile et vobis quoque vix cnarrabile enarrabile quomodo infans intellegit? Omnia animalia dialectica nasci oportet, ut istam finitionem magnae parti hominum togatorum obscuram intellegant. Verum erat quod opponis, si ego ab animalibus constitutionis finitionem intellegi dicerem, non ipsam constitutionem.

Nature is more easily understood than set forth; and so that infant does not know what the constitution is, but knows his own constitution. And he does not know what an animal is, but feels that he is an animal.

Facilius natura intellegitur quam enarratur; itaque infans ille quid sit constitutio non novit, constitutionem suam novit. Et quid sit animal, nescit, animal esse se sentit.

Besides, he understands his own constitution only roughly, in outline, and obscurely. We too know that we have a soul; what the soul is, where it is, of what kind or whence, we do not know. Such as is to us the sense of our own soul, though we are ignorant of its nature and seat, such is to all animals the sense of their own constitution. For they must feel that through which they feel other things too; they must have a sense of that which they obey, by which they are ruled.

Praeterea ipsam constitutionem suam crasse intellegit et summatim et obscure. Nos quoque animum habere nos scimus; quid sit animus, ubi sit, qualis sit aut unde, nescimus. Qualis ad nos animi nostri sensus, quamvis naturam eius ignoremus ac sedem, talis ad omnia animalia constitutionis suae sensus est. Necesse est enim id sentiant, per quod alia quoque sentiunt, necesse est eius sensum habeant, cui parent, a quo reguntur.

Every one of us understands that there is something which moves his impulses; what it is, he does not know. And he knows that he has an effort in him; what it is or whence, he does not know. So to infants too, and to animals, the sense of their ruling part is not clear enough nor distinct.

Nemo non ex nobis intellegit esse aliquid, quod impetus suos moveat; quid sit illud ignorat. Et conatum sibi esse scit; quis sit aut unde sit, nescit. Sic infantibus quoque animalibusque principalis partis suae sensus est non satis dilucidus nec expressus.

“You say,” he says, “that every animal is first conciliated to its own constitution; but man’s constitution is rational, and therefore man is conciliated to himself not as an animal, but as rational. For man is dear to himself in that part by which he is man. How then can an infant be conciliated to a rational constitution, when he is not yet rational?” Each age has its own constitution — one for the infant, one for the boy, one for the old man; and all are conciliated to that constitution in which they are.

Dicitis, inquit, omne animal primum constitutioni suae conciliari, hominis autem constitutionem rationalem esse et ideo conciliari hominem sibi non tamquam animali, sed tamquam rationali. Ea enim parte sibi carus est homo, qua homo est. Quomodo ergo infans conciliari constitutioni rationali potest, cum rationalis nondum sit? Unicuique aetati sua constitutio est, alia infanti, alia puero, alia seni; omnes ei constitutioni conciliantur in qua sunt.

The infant is without teeth: to this constitution of his he is conciliated. The teeth come: to this constitution he is conciliated. For that plant too, which is to come to a crop and grain, has one constitution when tender and barely showing above the furrow, another when it has grown strong and stands on a stalk still soft but able to bear its own weight, another when it grows yellow and looks toward the threshing-floor and its ear has hardened; into whatever constitution it comes, that it guards, into that it composes itself.

Infans sine dentibus est: huic constitutioni suae conciliatur. Enati sunt dentes; huic constitutioni conciliatur. Nam et illa herba, quae in segetem frugemque ventura est, aliam constitutionem habet tenera et vix eminens sulco, aliam, cum convaluit et molli quidem culmo, sed quo ferat onus suum, constitit, aliam cum flavescit et ad aream spectat et spica eius induruit; in quamcumque constitutionem venit, eam tuetur, in eam componitur.

One age is the infant’s, the boy’s, the youth’s, the old man’s; yet I am the same who was both an infant and a boy and a youth. So, though each has one constitution and another, the conciliation to one’s own constitution is the same. For nature commends to me not the boy or the youth or the old man, but myself. Therefore the infant is conciliated to that constitution of his which is then the infant’s, not that which is to be the youth’s. For even if something greater remains for him to pass into, this too, in which he is born, is according to nature.

Alia est aetas infantis, pueri, adulescentis, senis; ego tamen idem sum, qui et infans fui et puer et adulescens. Sic, quamvis alia atque aha cuique constitutio sit, conciliatio constitutionis suae eadem est. Non enim puerum mihi aut iuvenem aut senem, sed me natura commendat. Ergo infans ei constitutam* suae conciliatur, quae tunc infanti est, non quae futura iuveni est. Neque enim, si aliquid illi maius in quod transeat, restat, non hoc quoque in quo nascitur, secundum naturam est.

First of all the animal is conciliated to itself; for there must be something to which the rest are referred. I seek pleasure — for whom? For myself. So I take care of myself. I flee pain — on behalf of whom? Of myself. So I take care of myself. If I do all things for the care of myself, before all things is the care of myself. This is in all animals, not implanted but inborn.

Primum sibi ipsum conciliatur animal, debet enim aliquid esse, ad quod alia referantur, voluptatem peto, cui? Mihi. Ergo mei curam ago. Dolorem refugio, pro quo? Pro me. Ergo mei curam ago. Si omnia propter curam mei facio, ante omnia est mei cura. Haec animalibus inest cunctis nec inseritur, sed innascitur.

Nature brings forth her offspring, she does not cast them away. And because the surest guardianship is from what is nearest, each is committed to himself. And so, as I said in earlier letters, even tender animals, just poured from the mother’s womb or the egg, at once know of themselves what is hostile and avoid deadly things. They dread even the shadow of things flying over them, being prey to the birds that live by rapine. No animal comes forth into life without fear of death.

Producit fetus suos natura, non abicit. Et quia tutela certissima ex proximo est, sibi quisque commissus est. Itaque, ut in prioribus epistulis dixi, tenera quoque animalia et materno utero vel ovo modo effusa, quid sit infestum, ipsa protinus norunt et mortifera devitant. Umbram quoque transvolantium reformidant obnoxia avibus rapto viventibus. Nullum animal ad vitam prodit sine metu mortis.

“How,” he says, “can a newborn animal have an understanding of a thing healthful or deadly?” First it is asked whether it understands, not how it understands. That they have understanding appears from this: that they would do nothing more, if they had understood. What is the reason that a hen does not flee a peacock or a goose, but flees a hawk so much smaller and not even known to it? Why do chicks fear the cat, and not fear the dog? It appears that there is in them a knowledge of what will harm, not gathered by experience; for before they can make trial, they beware.

Quemadmodum, inquit, editum animal intellectum habere aut salutaris aut mortiferae rei potest? Primum quaeritur, an intellegat, non quemadmodum intellegat. Esse autem illis intellectum ex eo apparet, quod nihil amplius, si intellexerint, facient. Quid est, quare pavonem, quare anserem gallina non fugiat, at tanto minorem et ne notum quidem sibi accipitrem? Quare pulli faelem timeant, canem non timeant? Apparet illis inesse nocituri scientiam non experimento collectam; nam antequam possint experisci, cavent.

Then, lest you think this happens by chance, they neither fear other things than they ought, nor ever forget this guardianship and diligence; equal in them is the flight from the destructive. Besides, they do not grow more timid by living. From which indeed it appears that they come to this not by use, but by a natural love of their own safety. And what use teaches is both slow and various; whatever nature hands down is both equal in all and immediate.

Deinde ne hoc casu existimes fieri, nec metuunt alia quam debent nec umquam obliviscuntur huius tutelae et diligentiae; aequalis est illis a pernicioso fuga. Praeterea non fiunt timidiora vivendo. Ex quo quidem apparet non usu illa in hoc pervenire, sed naturali amore salutis suae. Et tardum est et varium, quod usus docet; quicquid natura tradit, et aequale omnibus est et statim.

If, however, you press it, I will tell how every animal tries to understand the destructive. It feels that it is made of flesh; and so it feels what it is by which flesh can be cut, burned, crushed, and which animals are armed to harm; of these it forms an image hostile and enemy. These things are joined together; for at once each is conciliated to its own safety and seeks what helps, dreads what will hurt. The impulses toward useful things are natural, the aversions from contrary ones are natural; without any thought to dictate it, without counsel, whatever nature has prescribed is done.

Si tamen exigis, dicam quomodo omne animal perniciosa intellegere conatur? Sentit se carne constare; itaque sentit, quid sit, quo secari caro, quo uri, quo opteri possit, quae sint animalia armata ad nocendum; horum speciem trahit inimicam et hostilem. Inter se ista coniuncta sunt; simul enim conciliatur saluti suae quidque et iuvantia petit, laesura formidat. Naturales ad utilia impetus, naturales a contrariis aspernationes sunt; sine ulla cogitatione, quae hoc dictet, sine consilio fit, quidquid natura praecepit.

Do you not see how great is the subtlety of bees for fashioning their cells, how great the concord in undertaking the divided labor on every side? Do you not see how that weaving of the spider is beyond any mortal to copy — of how much work it is to arrange the threads, some sent in straight as a framework, others running in a circle from dense to thin, by which the smaller creatures, for whose ruin they are stretched, may be held as if entangled in nets?

Non vides, quanta sit subtilitas apibus ad fingenda domicilia, quanta dividua laboris obeundi undique concordia? Non vides, quam nulli mortalium mutabilis illa aranei textura, quanti operis sit fila disponere, alia in rectum inmissa firmamenti loco, alia in orbem currentia ex denso rara, qua minora animalia, in quorum perniciem illa tcnduntur tenduntur, velut retibus implicata teneantur?

That art is born, not learned. And so no animal is more learned than another. You will see the webs of spiders equal, the opening of every angle in the honeycombs equal. Uncertain and unequal is whatever art hands down; from the equal comes what nature distributes. She has handed down nothing more than the guardianship of oneself and the skill of it, and therefore they begin at once both to learn and to live.

Nascitur ars ista, non discitur. Itaque nullum est animal altero doctius. videbis araneorum pares telas, par in favis angulorum omnium foramen. Incertum est et inaequabile, quidquid ars tradit; ex aequo venit, quod natura distribuit. Haec nihil magis quam tutelam sui et eius peritiam tradidit, ideoque etiam simul incipiunt et discere et vivere.

Nor is it strange that they are born with that without which they would have been born in vain. This first instrument nature bestowed on them for enduring — the conciliation to themselves and the love of themselves. They could not be safe unless they willed it. Nor would this by itself have profited, but without this nothing would have profited. In none will you catch a cheapness of itself, not even a negligence. To the silent and the brute too, though they are torpid in other things, there is a cleverness for living. You will see that the things which are useless to others are not lacking to themselves. Farewell.

Nec est mirum cum eo nasci illa, sine quo frustra nascerentur. Primum hoc instrumentum in illa natura contulit ad permanendum, conciliationem et caritatem sui. Non poterant salva esse, nisi vellent. Nec hoc per se profuturum erat, sed sine hoc nulla res profuisset. In nullo deprendes vilitatem sui, ne neglegentiam quidem. Tacitis quoque et brutis, quamquam in cetera torpeant, ad vivendum sollertia est. videbis, quae aliis inutilia sunt, sibi ipsa non deesse. Vale.

The day has now felt its loss. It has sprung back somewhat, yet so that there is still ample room left, if one rises, so to speak, with the day itself. He is more dutiful and better who awaits it and catches the first light; base is he who lies half-asleep with the sun high, whose waking begins at midday — and even this for many is before dawn.

Detrimentum iam dies sensit. Resiluit aliquantum, ita tamen ut liberate adhuc spatium sit, si quis cum ipso, ut ita dicam, die surgat. Officiosior meliorque, si quis illum exspectat et lucem primam excipit; turpis, qui alto sole semisomnus iacet, cuius vigilia medio die incipit; et adhuc multis hoc antelucanum est.

And when the rising Sun has first breathed on us with his panting horses, for them red Vesper is kindling his late lamps.

Nosque ubi primus equis Oriens adflavit anhelis, Illis sera rubens accendit lumina Vesper;

Do you think these men know how one ought to live, who do not know when? And do these fear death, into which they have buried themselves alive? They are as ill-omened as the birds of night. Though they pass their darkness in wine and perfume, though they draw out the whole time of their perverse waking with feasts — and those cooked into many courses — they do not feast, but perform their own obsequies. The dead, at least, are mourned by day. But, by Hercules, no day is long to one who is busy. Let us lengthen life; both its duty and its proof is action. Let the night be cut short, and let something of it be carried over into the day.

Hos tu existimas scire quemadmodum vivendum sit, qui nesciunt quando? Et hi mortem timent, in quam se vivi condiderunt? Tam infausti quam nocturnae aves sunt. Licet in vino unguentoque tenebras suas exigant, licet epulis et quidem in multa fericula discoctis totum perversae vigiliae tempus educant, non convivantur, sed iusta sibi faciunt. Mortuis certe interdiu parentatur. At mehercules nullus agenti dies longus est. Extendamus vitam; huius et officium et argumentum actus est. Circumscribatur nox, et aliquid ex illa in diem transferatur.

Birds that are made ready for banquets, that they may fatten easily by lying still, are kept in the dark; so a bloating invades the sluggish body of those who lie without any exercise, and under the proud shade an inert fat grows up. But the bodies of those men who have dedicated themselves to darkness are foul to look on. Their color, indeed, is more suspect than that of those who suffer under a disease; pale, languid and faded they whiten, and in the living the flesh is that of a corpse. Yet this I would call the least of their evils. How much more darkness is in the soul! That man is stupefied within himself, that man is in a fog, he envies the blind. Who ever had eyes for the sake of darkness?

Aves, quae conviviis conparantur, ut inmotae facile pinguescant, in obscuro continentur; ita sine ulla exercitatione iacentibus tumor pigrum corpus invadit, et superba umbra iners sagina subcrescit. At istorum corpora, qui se tenebris dicaverunt, foeda visuntur. Quippe suspectior illis quam morbo patientibus color est, languidi et evanidi albent, et in vivis caro morticina est. Hoc tamen minimum in illis malorum dixerim. Quanto plus tenebrarum in animo est! Ille in se stupet, ille caligat, invidet caecis. Quis umquam oculos tenebrarum causa habuit?

You ask how this depravity comes about in the soul, of shunning the day and carrying the whole of life over into night? All vices fight against nature, all desert the due order. This is the aim of luxury: to rejoice in perverse things, and not only to depart from the right but to go as far from it as possible, then even to stand on the contrary side.

Interrogas, quomodo haec animo pravitas fiat aversandi diem et totam vitam in noctem transferendi? Omnia vitia contra naturam pugnant, omnia debitum ordinem deserunt. Hoc est luxuriae propositum, gaudere perversis nec tantum discedere a recto, sed quam longissime abire, deinde etiam e contrario stare.

Do they not seem to you to live against nature who drink fasting, who take wine into empty veins and pass to their food drunk? And yet this is a frequent vice of young men who cultivate their strength, so that almost on the very threshold of the bath, among naked men, they drink — nay, tipple — and again and again scrape off the sweat they have raised with frequent and scalding draughts. To drink after lunch or dinner is common; this the rustic heads of households do, and those ignorant of true pleasure. That wine delights which does not float on food, which freely penetrates to the sinews; that drunkenness pleases which comes into an empty space.

Non videntur tibi contra naturam vivere qui ieiuni bibunt, qui vinum recipiunt inanibus venis et ad cibum ebrii transeunt? Atqui frequens hoc adulescentium vitium est, qui vires excolunt, ut in ipso paene balinei limine inter nudos bibant, immo potent et sudorem, quem moverunt potionibus crebris ac ferventibus, subinde destringant. Post prandium aut cenam bibere vulgare est; hoc patres familiae rustici faciunt et verae voluptatis ignari. Merum illud delectat, quod non innatat cibo, quod libere penetrat ad nervos; illa ebrietas iuvat, quae in vacuum venit.

Do they not seem to you to live against nature who exchange dress with women? Do they not live against nature who contrive that boyhood shine at an alien time of life? What can be done more cruel or more wretched? Will he never be a man, that he may long submit to being used as one? And when his sex ought to have rescued him from the outrage, will not even his age rescue him?

Non videntur tibi contra naturam vivere qui commutant cum feminis vestem? Non vivunt contra naturam qui spectant, ut pueritia splendeat tempore alieno? Quid fieri crudelius vel miserius potest? Numquam vir erit, ut diu virum pati possit? Et cum illum contumeliae sexus eripuisse debuerat, non ne aetas quidem eripiet?

Do they not live against nature who in winter long for a rose, and by the fomentation of warm waters and an apt change of heats force out a lily, a spring flower, in midwinter? Do they not live against nature who plant orchards on the tops of towers, whose woods wave on the roofs and gables of their houses, the roots springing up there from which it was outrageous that the tops should rise? Do they not live against nature who lay the foundations of baths in the sea, and do not think they swim daintily unless their warm pools are beaten by wave and storm?

Non vivunt contra naturam qui hieme concupiscunt rosam fomentoque aquarum calentium et calorum apta mutatione bruma lilium, florem vernum, exprimunt? Non vivunt contra naturam qui pomaria in summis turribus serunt? Quorum silvae in tectis domuum ac fastigiis nutant, inde ortis radicibus quo inprobe cacumina egissent? Non vivunt contra naturam qui fundamenta thermarum in mari iaciunt et delicate natare ipsi sibi non videntur, nisi calentia stagna fluctu ac tempestate feriantur?

When they have set about willing all things against the custom of nature, at last they grow wholly unaccustomed to her. “It is light: it is time for sleep. It is quiet: now let us be exercised, now let us be carried in our litters, now let us lunch. Now the light draws nearer: it is time for dinner. We must not do what the people does. It is a sordid thing to live by the worn and common road. Let the public day be left behind: let a morning be made our own and private.”

Cum instituerunt omnia contra naturae consuetudinem velle, novissime in totum ab illa desuescunt. Lucet: somni tempus est. Quies est: nunc exerceamur, nunc gestemur, nunc prandeamus. Iam lux propius accedit; tempus est cenae. Non oportet id facere, quod populus. Res sordida est trita ac vulgari via vivere. Dies publicus relinquatur: proprium nobis ac peculiare mane fiat.

But those men are, to me, in the place of the dead. For how little are they distant from a funeral — and an untimely one — who live by torches and tapers? Many living this life at the same time we remember, among them Acilius Buta, a man of praetorian rank, to whom, when after a vast patrimony consumed he confessed his poverty, Tiberius said: “You have woken up late.”

Isti vero mihi defunctorum loco sunt. Quantulum enim a funere absunt et quidem acerbo, qui ad faces et ccreos cereos vivunt? Hanc vitam agere eodem tempore multos meminimus, inter quos et Acilium Butam, praetorium, cui post patrimonium ingens consumptum Tiberius paupertatem confitenti sero, inquit, experrectus es.

Iulius Montanus was reciting a poem — a tolerable poet, known both for Tiberius’s friendship and for his frigidity. He used to insert sunrises and sunsets most gladly. And so, when a certain man was indignant that he had recited the whole day and said one should not go to his recitations, Natta Pinarius said: “I can never act more generously: I am ready to hear him from sunrise to sunset.”

Recitabat Montanus Iulius carmen, tolerabilis poeta et amicitia Tiberi notus et frigore. Ortus et occasus libentissime inserebat. Itaque cum indignaretur quidam illum toto die recitasse et negaret accedendum ad recitationes eius, Natta Pinarius ait: Numquam possum liberalius agere: paratus sum illum audire ab ortu ad occasum.

Phoebus begins to lead forth his burning flames, the ruddy day to scatter itself; now the mournful swallow, about to return, begins to bring food to her chirping nestlings, and with gentle beak deals it out in portions,

Incipit ardentes Phoebus producere flammas, Spargere se rubicunda dies, iam tristis hirundo Argutis reditura cibos inmittere nidis Incipit et molli partitos ore ministrat,

Now the shepherds have stalled their herds, now sluggish night begins to give silence to the lulled lands.

Iam sua pastores stabulis armenta locarunt, Iam dare sopitis nox pigra silentia terris Incipit,

But the cause of living thus, for some, is not that they think the night itself has anything more pleasant, but that nothing customary pleases them, and the light is grievous to a bad conscience, and to one who craves or despises all things according as they were bought at great or small price, the free daylight is a disgust. Besides, the luxurious want their life to be talked of while they live; for if there is silence, they think they are wasting their effort. So they are ill at ease whenever they do something that would escape report. Many eat up their estates, many keep mistresses. To win a name among these, you must do something not only luxurious but notable; in so busy a city common wickedness finds no gossip.

Causa autem est ita vivendi quibusdam, non quia aliquid existiment noctem ipsam habere iucundius, sed quia nihil iuvat solitum, et gravis malae conscientiae lux est, et omnia concupiscenti aut contemnenti, prout magno aut parvo empta sunt, fastidio est lumen gratuitum. Praeterea luxuriosi vitam suam esse in sermonibus, dum vivunt, volunt; nam si tacetur, perdere se putant operam. Itaque male habent, quotiens faciunt quod excidat fama. Multi bona comedunt, multi amicas habent. Ut inter istos nomen invenias, opus est non tantum luxuriosam rem, sed notabilem facere; in tam occupata civitate fabulas vulgaris nequitia non invenit.

We had heard Pedo Albinovanus telling — and he was a most elegant raconteur — that he had lived above the house of Sextus Papinius. He was of this herd of light-shunners. “I hear,” he said, “about the third hour of the night the sound of whips. I ask what he is doing; it is said he is going over his accounts. I hear about the sixth hour of the night a vehement shouting; I ask what it is; it is said he is exercising his voice. I ask about the eighth hour of the night what that sound of wheels means; he is said to be taking a drive.”

Pcdonem Pedonem Albinovanum narrantem audieramus, erat autem fabulator elegantissimus, habitasse se supra domum S. Papini. Is erat ex hac turba lucifugarum. Audio, inquit, circa horam tertiam noctis flagellorum sonum. Quaero, quid faciat; dicitur rationes accipere. Audio circa horam sextam noctis clamorem concitatum; quaero, quid sit; dicitur vocem exercere. Quaero circa horam octavam noctis, quid sibi ille sonus rotarum velit; gestari dicitur.

“About daybreak there is a running to and fro, the boys are called, the cellarers and cooks are in an uproar. I ask what it is; it is said he has called for mulled wine and a barley-drink, that he has come out of the bath.” “His dinner,” he said, “exceeded his day not at all; for he lived very frugally — he consumed nothing but the night.” And so, when certain men called him a miser and a niggard, “You,” he said, “will call him a lamp-liver too.”

Circa lucem discurritur, pueri vocantur, cellarii, coqui tumultuantur. Quaero, quid sit; dicitur mulsum et habeam poposcisse, a balneo exisse. Excedebat. inquit, huius diem cena minime, valde enim frugaliter vivebat; nihil consumebat nisi noctem. Itaque credendo dicentibus illum quibusdam avarum et sordidum vos, inquit, illum et lychnobium dicetis.

You ought not to marvel if you find such great peculiarities of the vices; they are various, they have innumerable faces, their kinds cannot be comprehended. Simple is the care of the right, manifold that of the crooked, and it takes on any number of new deviations. The same happens with morals; those of men who follow nature are easy, free, with slight differences; the distorted differ very much both from all others and among themselves.

Non debes admirari, si tantas invenis vitiorum proprietates; varia sunt, innumerabiles habent facies, comprendi eorum genera non possunt. Simplex recti cura est, multiplex pravi, et quantumvis novas declinationes capit. Idem moribus evenit; naturam sequentium faciles sunt, soluti sunt, exiguas differentias habent; his distorti plurimum et omnibus et inter se dissident.

But the chief cause of this disease seems to me a disgust at the common life. As they set themselves apart from the rest by their dress, by the elegance of their dinners, by the neatness of their carriages, so they wish to set themselves apart even by the arrangement of their hours. They are unwilling to sin in the usual way, men for whom the reward of sinning is notoriety. This all those men seek who, so to speak, live backward.

Causa tamen praecipua mihi videtur huius morbi vitae communis fastidium. Quomodo cultu se a ceteris distinguunt, quomodo elegantia cenarum, munditiis vehiculorum, sic se volunt separare etiam temporum dispositione. Nolunt solita peccare, quibus peccandi praemium infamia est. Hanc petunt omnes isti, qui, ut ita dicam, retro vivunt.

Therefore, Lucilius, we must hold to the road which nature has prescribed, and not turn aside from it; to those who follow it all things are easy and ready; to those who strain against it, life is no other than for men rowing against the current. Farewell.

Ideo, Lucili, tenenda nobis via est, quam natura praescripsit, nec ab illa declinandum; illam sequentibus omnia facilia, expedita sunt, contra illam nitentibus non alia vita est quam contra aquam remigantibus. Vale.

Worn out by a journey more uncomfortable than long, I reached my Alban place late at night; I have nothing ready except myself. So I lay my weariness on the little couch, and take this delay of cook and baker in good part. For I talk with myself about this very thing: how nothing is heavy that you receive lightly, nothing to be resented unless you build the resentment up by your own resenting.

Itinere confectus incommodo magis quam longo in Albanum meum multa nocte perveni; nihil habeo parati nisi me. Itaque in lectulo lassitudinem pono, hanc coci ac pistoris moram boni consulo. Mecum enim de hoc ipso loquor, quam nihil sit grave, quod leviter excipias, indignandum nihil nisi ipse indignando adstruas.

My baker has no bread; but the bailiff has, the steward has, the tenant has. “Bad bread,” you say. Wait: it will become good. Hunger will make even that soft and of fine flour to you. Therefore one ought not to eat before she commands; so I will wait, and not eat before I have begun either to have good bread or to cease to be fastidious.

Non habet panem meus pistor; sed habet vilicus, sed habet atriensis, sed habet colonus. Malum pane, inquis. Exspecta: bonus fiet. Etiam illum tibi tenerum et siligineum fames reddet. Ideo non est ante edendum quam illa imperat; exspectabo ergo nec ante edam quam aut bonum panem habere coepero aut fastidire desiero.

It is necessary to grow used to little: many difficulties of place, many of time, will meet even the wealthy and those equipped for pleasure, and forbid them. No one can have whatever he wants; this he can — not to want what he does not have, and to use cheerfully the things offered. A great part of liberty is a well-mannered belly, one that can bear an affront.

Necessarium est parvo adsuescere: multae difficultates locorum, multae temporum etiam loeupletibus locupletibus et instructis ad voluptatem prohibentes occurrent. Quidquid vult habere nemo potest, illud potest, nolle quod non habet, rebus oblatis hilaris uti. Magna pars libertatis est bene moratus venter et contumeliae patiens.

It cannot be reckoned how much pleasure I take from this — that my weariness grows used to itself; I seek no rubbers-down, no bath, no other remedy than time. For what toil has knit together, rest undoes. This dinner, of whatever kind, will be more delightful than an inaugural feast.

Aestimari non potest, quantam voluptatem capiam ex eo, quod lassitudo mea sibi ipsa adsuescit; non unctores, non balineum, non ullum aliud remedium quam temporis quaero. Nam quod labor contraxit, quies tollit. Haec qualiscumque cena aditiali iucundior erit.

For I have suddenly taken some trial of my soul; and this is simpler and truer. For when it has prepared itself and proclaimed patience to itself, it does not equally appear how much true firmness it has; those are the surest proofs which it gives on the spot — if it has looked on troubles not only with an even but a placid face; if it has not flared up, not quarreled; if it has supplied for itself, by not desiring, what ought to have been given, and has thought that something was lacking to its habit, but nothing to itself.

Aliquod enim experimentum animi sumpsi subito; hoc enim est simplicius et verius. Nam ubi se praeparavit et indixit sibi patientiam, non aeque apparet, quantum habeat verae firmitatis; illa sunt certissima argumenta, quae ex tempore dedit, si non tantum aequus molestias, sed placidus aspexit; si non excanduit, non litigavit; si quod dari deberet ipse sibi non desiderando supplevit et cogitavit aliquid consuetudini suae, sibi nihil deesse.

How superfluous many things were, we did not understand until they began to be lacking; for we used them not because we needed them, but because we had them. But how many things we acquire because others have acquired them, because they are in most men’s houses! Among the causes of our evils is this: that we live by examples, and are not composed by reason but led astray by custom. What, if few did it, we would be unwilling to imitate; when more have begun to do it, we follow, as if it were more honorable because more frequent. And error holds with us the place of the right, once it has become public.

Multa quam supervacua essent, non intelleximus, nisi deesse coeperunt; utebamur enim illis, non quia debebamus, sed quia habebamus. Quam multa autem paramus, quia alii paraverunt, quia apud plerosque sunt! Inter causas malorum nostrorum est, quod vivimus ad exempla, nec ratione conponimur sed consuetudine abducimur. Quod, si pauci facerent, nollemus imitari, cum plures facere coeperunt, quasi honestius sit, quia frequentius, sequimur. Et recti apud nos locum tenet error, ubi publicus factus est.

All now travel so that a cavalry of Numidians runs before them, that a column of runners goes ahead; it is shameful to have none to drive those who meet one off the road, or to show, by a great cloud of dust, that an honorable man is coming. All now have mules to carry crystal and murrine and pieces chased by the hands of great artists; it is shameful to seem to have only such baggage as can be jolted without harm. The pages of all are conveyed with smeared faces, lest the sun, lest the cold, hurt their tender skin; it is shameful that there be no boy in your retinue whose sound face calls for an ointment.

Omnes iam sic peregrinantur, ut illos Numidarum praecurrat equitatus, ut agmen cursorum anteccdat antecedat; turpe est nullos esse, qui occurrentis via deiciant, aut qui honestum hominem venire magno pulvere ostendant. Omnes iam mulos habent, qui crustallina et murrina et caelata magnorum artificum manu portent; turpe est videri eas te habere sarcinas totas, quae e tuto concuti possint. Omnium paedagogia oblita facie vehuntur, ne sol, ne frigus teneram cutem laedat; turpe est neminem esse in comitatu tuo puerorum, cuius sana facies medicamentum desideret.

The talk of all these is to be avoided: these are the men who hand on vices and carry them from one place to another. The worst kind of men used to seem those who carried words about; there are some who carry vices about. Their talk does much harm; for even if it does not at once take effect, it leaves seeds in the soul, and follows us even when we have parted from them — an evil that will rise again later.

Horum omnium sermo vitandus est: hi sunt, qui vitia tradunt et alio aliunde transerunt. Pessimum genus horum hominum videbatur, qui verba gestarent; sunt quidam, qui vitia gestant. Horum sermo multum nocet; nam etiam si non statim profecit, semina in animo relinquit sequiturque nos etiam cum ab illis discessimus, resurrecturum postea malum.

Just as those who have heard a concert carry with them in their ears that melody and sweetness of the songs, which hinders thought and does not let one bend to serious things, so the talk of flatterers and of those who praise crooked things sticks longer than it is heard. Nor is it easy to shake a sweet sound out of the soul; it follows and lasts and recurs after an interval. Therefore the ears must be closed to evil voices, and that from the first; for once they have made their entrance and been admitted, they dare more.

Quemadmodum qui audierunt symphoniam, ferunt secum in auribus modulationem illam ac dulcedinem cantuum, quae cogitationes impedit nec ad seria patitur intendi, sic adulatorum et prava laudantium sermo diutius haeret quam auditur. Nec facile est animo dulcem sonum excutere; prosequitur et durat et ex intervallo recurrit. Ideo cludendae sunt aures malis vocibus et quidem primis; quom initum fecerunt admissaeque insunt plus audent.

From this one comes to these words: “Virtue and philosophy and justice are a rattle of empty words. The one happiness is to do well by life: to eat, to drink, to enjoy one’s patrimony — this is to live, this is to remember that one is mortal. The days flow on, and irrecoverable life runs down; do we hesitate to be wise? What good is it to heap frugality meanwhile upon an age that will not always receive pleasures, while it can, while it demands them? Outrun death, then, and whatever it will take away, let it perish for you now. You have no mistress, no boy to stir a mistress’s jealousy; daily you come out sober; you dine as though you must show your account-book to your father: that is not to live, but to be present at another’s life.”

Inde ad haec pervenitur verba: virtus et philosophia et iustitia verborum inanium crepitus est. Una felicitas est bene vitae facere. Esse, bibere, frui patrimonio, hoc est vivere, hoc est se mortalem esse meminisse. Fluunt dies et inreparabilis vita decurrit; dubitamus sapere? Quid iuvat aetati non semper voluptates recepturae interim, dum potest, dum poscit, ingerere frugalitatem? Eo mortem praecurre et quidquid illa ablatura est, iam sine tibi interire. Non amicam habes, non puerum, qui amicae moveat invidiam; cottidie sobrius prodis; sic cenas tamquam ephemeridem patri adprobaturus: non est istud vivere, sed alienae vitae interesse.

What madness it is to manage your heir’s affairs and to deny everything to yourself, so that a great inheritance turns him from a friend into an enemy to you! For he will rejoice the more at your death, the more he receives. Those grim and supercilious censors of another’s life, enemies of their own, public schoolmasters — value them not a penny, and do not hesitate to prefer a good life to a good name.

Quanta dementia est heredis sui res procurare et sibi negare omnia, ut tibi ex amico inimicum magna faciat hereditas. Plus enim gaudebit tua morte, quo plus acceperit. Istos tristes et superciliosos alienae vitae censores, suae hostes, publicos paedagogos assis ne feceris nec dubitaveris bonam vitam quam opinionem bonam malle.

These voices are to be fled no otherwise than those which Ulysses would not sail past except bound. They can do the same: they draw one away from country, from parents, from friends, from the virtues, and dash one, wretched, upon a base life — wretched, unless it be a base hope. How much better to follow the straight path and to bring oneself to this, that only those things be pleasant to you which are honorable.

Hae voces non aliter fugiendae sunt quam illae, quas Ulixes nisi alligatus praetervehi noluit. Idem possunt; abducunt a patria, a parentibus, ab amicis, a virtutibus et in turpem vitam misera nisi turpi spe illidunt. Quanto satius est rectum sequi limitem et eo se perducere, ut ea demum sint tibi iucunda, quae honesta.

Which we shall be able to attain, if we know that there are two kinds of things which either invite us or drive us off. They invite — as riches, pleasures, beauty, ambition, and the rest of the coaxing and smiling things; they drive off — toil, death, pain, disgrace, a stricter diet. We must therefore train ourselves not to fear these, not to desire those. Let us fight in the contrary direction, and withdraw from the things that invite, rouse ourselves against the things that assail.

Quod adsequi poterimus, si scierimus duo esse genera rerum, quae nos aut invitent aut fugent. Invitant ut divitiae, voluptates, forma, ambitio, cetera blanda et adridentia; fugat labor, mors, dolor, ignominia, victus adstrictior. Debemus itaque exerceri, ne haec timeamus, ne illa cupiamus. In contrarium pugnemus et ab invitantibus recedamus, adversus petentia concitemur.

Do you not see how different is the bearing of those going down and those going up? Those who go down a slope throw their bodies back; those who go up a steep lean forward. For to give your weight to the front if you descend, to draw it backward if you ascend, is, my Lucilius, to consent with vice. Into pleasures one goes down; toward harsh and hard things one must climb up; here let us push our bodies forward, there rein them back.

Non vides, quam diversus sit descendentium habitus et ascendentium? Qui per pronum eunt, resupinant corpora, qui in arduum, incumbunt. Nam si descendas, pondus suum in priorem* partem dare, si ascendas, retro abducere cum vitio, Lucili, consentire est. In voluptates descenditur, in aspera et dura subeundum est; hic inpellamus corpora, illic refrenemus.

Do you think I now mean this — that only those are ruinous to our ears who praise pleasure, who strike into us the fear of pain, things fearful in themselves? Those too, I think, harm us who, under the appearance of the Stoic sect, urge us toward vices. For they boast this: that only the wise and learned man is a lover. “He alone has the skill for this art; the wise man is equally most expert in drinking together and living together. Let us ask up to what age young men are to be loved.”

Hoc nunc me existimas dicere, eos tantum perniciosos esse auribus nostris, qui voluptatem laudant, qui doloris metus, per se formidabiles res, incutiunt? Illos quoque nocere nobis existimo, qui nos sub specie Stoicae sectae hortantur ad vitia. Hoc enim iactant: solum sapientem et doctum esse amatorem. Solus sapit ad hanc artem; aeque conbibendi et convivendi sapiens est peritissimus. Quaeramus, ad quam usque aetatem iuvenes amandi sint.

Let these things be granted to Greek custom; let us rather turn our ears to these: No one is good by chance. Virtue must be learned. Pleasure is a low and petty thing, to be held of no price, common with dumb animals, to which the least and most contemptible creatures fly. Glory is something empty and fleeting, and more shifting than the breeze. Poverty is an evil to no one but him who fights against it. Death is no evil; what do you ask? It alone is the equal right of the human race. Superstition is the error of a madman: it fears those it ought to love; those it worships, it violates. For what difference is there whether you deny the gods or defame them?

Haec Graecae consuetudini data sint, nos ad illa potius aures derigamus: Nemo est casu bonus. Discenda virtus est. voluptas humilis res et pusilla est et in nullo habenda pretio, communis cum mutis animalibus, ad quam minima et contemptissima advolant. Gloria vanum et volucre quiddam est auraque mobilius. Paupertas nulli malum est nisi repugnanti. Mors malum non est; quid quaeris? Sola ius aecum generis humani. Superstitio error insanientis est; amandos timet; quos colit, violat. Quid enim interest, utrum deos neges an infames?

These things must be learned — nay, learned by heart; philosophy ought not to furnish excuses for vice. No hope of safety has the sick man whose doctor urges him to intemperance. Farewell.

Haec discenda, immo ediscenda sunt; non debet excusationes vitio philosophia suggerere. Nullam habet spem salutis aeger, quem ad intemperantiam medicus hortatur. Vale.

Many precepts of the ancients I could tell you, unless you shrink back and are loath to learn slight cares.

Possum multa tibi veterum praecepta referre, Ni refugis tenuisque piget cognoscere curas.

Whoever set pleasure in the highest place judge the good to be sensible; we, on the contrary, intelligible, who give it to the soul. If the senses judged of the good, we would reject no pleasure, for there is none that does not invite, none that does not delight; and, on the contrary, we would undergo no pain willingly, for there is none that does not offend the sense.

Quicumque voluptatem in summo ponunt, sensibile iudicant bonum, nos contra intellegibile, qui illud animo damus. Si de bono sensus iudicarent, nullam voluptatem reiceremus, nulla enim non invitat, nulla non delectat; et e contrario nullum dolorem volentes subiremus, nullus enim non offendit sensum.

Besides, those would not be worthy of blame to whom pleasure pleases too much and for whom the fear of pain is highest. And yet we condemn those addicted to gluttony and lust, and we despise those who will dare nothing manfully for fear of pain. But how do they sin, if they obey the senses — that is, the judges of good and evil? For to these you have handed the verdict of seeking and of fleeing.

Praeterea non essent digni reprehensione, quibus nimium voluptas placet quibusque summus est doloris timor. Atqui inprobamus gulae ac libidini addictos et contemnimus illos, qui nihil viriliter ausuri sunt doloris metu. Quid autem peccant, si sensibus, id est iudicibus boni ac mali, parent? His enim tradidistis adpetitionis et fugae arbitrium.

But, you see, reason has been set over this matter; and reason, as about the happy life, as about virtue, about the honorable, so also decides about good and evil. For with those men the verdict about the better is given to the basest part, that the sense should pronounce on the good — a thing blunt and dull and slower in man than in the other animals.

Sed videlicet ratio isti rei praeposita est; illa quemadmodum de beata vita, quemadmodum de virtute, de honesto, sic et de bono maloque constituit. Nam apud istos vilissimae parti datur de meliore sententia, ut de bono pronuntiet sensus, obtunsa res et hebes et in homine quam in aliis animalibus tardior.

What if someone wished to distinguish minute things not with the eyes but by touch? No sharper or more intent edge for this than that of the eyes would let one tell good from evil. You see in how great an ignorance of the truth he is engaged, and how he has flung the sublime and the divine to the ground, in whose judgment touch decides about the highest good and evil.

Quid si quis vellet non oculis, sed tactu minuta discernere? Subtilior ad hoc acies nulla quam oculorum et intentior daret bonum malumque dinoscere. Vides in quanta ignorantia veritatis versetur et quam humi sublimia ac divina proiecerit, apud quem de summo, bono malo, iudicat tactus.

“As,” he says, “all knowledge and art ought to have something manifest and grasped by sense, from which it may arise and grow, so the happy life draws its foundation and beginning from manifest things and from what falls under sense. Surely you say that the happy life takes its beginning from manifest things.”

Quemadmodum, inquit, omnis scientia atque ars aliquid debet habere manifestum sensuque conprehensum, ex quo oriatur et crescat, sic beata vita fundamentum et initium a manifestis ducit et eo, quod sub sensum cadat. Nempe vos a manifestis beatam vitam initium sui capere dicitis.

We say that those things are blessed which are according to nature. But what is according to nature appears plainly and at once, just as does what is whole. What is according to nature, what falls to a creature straightway at birth, I do not call good, but the beginning of good. You give the highest good, pleasure, to infancy, so that the newborn begins from that point to which the completed man arrives.

Dicimus beata esse, quae secundum naturam sint. Quid autem secundum naturam sit, palam et protinus apparet, sicut quid sit integrum. Quod secundum naturam est, quod contigit protinus nato, non dico bonum, sed initium boni. Tu summum bonum, voluptatem, infantiae donas, ut inde incipiat nascens, quo consummatus homo pervenit.

You put the treetop in the place of the root. If someone said that the child hidden in the mother’s womb, of sex still uncertain, tender and unfinished and shapeless, was already in some good, he would plainly seem to err. And yet how little difference is there between him who is at this very moment receiving life and him who is a hidden burden of his mother’s entrails? Both, as to the understanding of good and evil, are equally mature, and the infant is no more capable of good than a tree or some dumb animal. But why is there no good in a tree and a dumb animal? Because there is no reason there. For this cause there is none in the infant either, for he too lacks it; he will arrive at the good when he has arrived at reason. There is some animal irrational, some not yet rational, some rational but imperfect; in none of these is the good — reason brings it with itself.

Cacumen radicis loco ponis. Si quis diceret illum in materno utero latentem, sexus quoque incerti, tenerum et inperfectum et informem iam in aliquo bono esse, aperte videretur errare. Atqui quantulum interest inter cum, qui cum maxime vitam accipit, et illum, qui maternorum viscerum latens onus est? Uterque, quantum ad intellectum boni ac mali, aeque maturus est, et non magis infans adhuc boni capax est quam arbor aut mutum aliquod animal. Quare autem bonum in arbore animalique muto non est? Quia nec ratio. Ob hoc in infante quoque non est, nam et huic deest; tune tunc ad bonum perveniet, cum ad rationem perveneris Est aliquod inrationale animal, est aliquod nondum rationale, est rationale sed inperfectum; in nullo horum bonum, ratio illud secum adfert.

What, then, is the difference between those I have mentioned? In that which is irrational, there will never be good. In that which is not yet rational, the good cannot be as yet. In that which is rational but imperfect, the good can now be, but is not.

Quid ergo inter ista, quae rettuli, distat? In eo, quod inrationale est, numquam erit bonum. In eo, quod nondum rationale est, tunc esse bonum non potest. Esse in eo, quod rationale est sed inperfectum, iam potest bonum, sed non est.

So I say, Lucilius: the good is found not in any body whatsoever, not at any age whatsoever, and it is as far from infancy as the last is from the first, as the perfect from the beginning. Therefore it is not in the tender little body just coalescing. Why should it not be? No more than in the seed.

Ita dico, Lucili: bonum non in quolibet corpore, non in qualibet aetate invenitur et tantum abest ab infantia, quantum a primo ultimum, quantum ab initio perfectum. Ergo nec in tenero, modo coalescente corpusculo est. Quidni non sit? Non magis quam in semine.

You may say this: we know some good of the tree and the plant; this is not in the first leaf, which, sent out, breaks the very soil. There is some good of the wheat; this is not yet in the milky blade, nor when the soft ear thrusts itself out of its husk, but when summer and due ripeness have baked the grain. As every nature does not bring forth its own good except when completed, so the good of man is not in man except when his reason is perfected.

Hoc si dicas, aliquod arboris ac sati bonum novimus; hoc non est in prima fronde, quae emissa eum maxime solum rumpit. Est aliquod bonum tritici; hoc nondum est in herba lactente nec cum folliculo se exerit spica mollis, sed cum frumentum aestas et debita maturitas coxit. Quemadmodum omnis natura bonum suum nisi consummata non profert, ita hominis bonum non est in homine, nisi cum illi ratio perfecta est.

But what is this good? I will tell you: a free soul, upright, subjecting other things to itself, itself to none. This good infancy so far does not receive that boyhood does not hope for it, and youth hopes for it wrongly; it goes well with old age if by long and intent study it has arrived at it. If this is the good, it is also intelligible.

Quod autem hoc bonum? Dicam: liber animus, erectus, alia subiciens sibi, se nulli. Hoc bonum adeo non recipit infantia, ut pueritia non speret, adulescentia inprobe speret; bene agitur cum senectute, si ad illud longo studio intentoque pervenit. Si hoc est bonum, et intellegibile est.

“You said,” he says, “that there is some good of the tree, some of the grass; there can therefore be some of the infant too.” The true good is neither in trees nor in dumb animals; this which is good in them is called good only on sufferance. “What is it?” you say. This — what is according to each one’s nature. But good can in no way fall to a dumb animal; it belongs to a happier and better nature. Except where there is room for reason, there is no good.

Dixisti, inquit, aliquod bonum esse arboris, aliquod herbae; potest ergo aliquod esse et infantis. Verum bonum nec in arboribus nec in mutis animalibus; hoc, quod in illis bonum est, precario bonum dicitur. Quod est? inquis. Hoc, quod secundum cuiusque naturam est. Bonum quidem cadere in mutum animal nullo modo potest; felicioris meliorisque naturae est. Nisi ubi rationi locus est, bonum non est.

These four natures there are: of the tree, of the animal, of man, of god. These two, which are rational, have the same nature, differing in this, that the one is immortal, the other mortal. Of these, then, nature perfects the good of one — of god, of course; care perfects that of the other, of man. The rest are perfect only in their own nature, not truly perfect, those from which reason is absent. For that alone is finally perfect which is perfect according to universal nature, and universal nature is rational. The rest can be perfect in their own kind.

Quattuor hae naturae sunt, arboris, animalis, hominis, dei; haec duo, quae rationalia, sunt, eandem naturam habent, illo diversa sunt, quod alterum inmortale, alterum mortale est. Ex his ergo unius bonum natura perficit, dei scilicet, alterius cura, hominis. Cetera tantum in sua natura perfecta sunt, non vere perfecta, a quibus abest ratio. Hoc enim demum perfectum est, quod secundum universam naturam perfectum, universa autem natura rationalis est. Cetera possunt in suo genere esse perfecta.

In that which cannot have the happy life, neither can that be by which the happy life is brought about; but the happy life is brought about by goods. In a dumb animal there is no happy life, nor that by which the happy life is brought about; in a dumb animal there is no good.

In quo non potest beata vita esse, nec id potest, quo beata vita efficitur, beata autem vita bonis efficitur. In muto animali non est beata vita nec id, quo beata vita efficitur, in muto animali bonum non est.

The dumb animal grasps the present by sense. It remembers past things when something falls out by which the sense may be reminded; as a horse remembers a road when he is brought to its beginning. In the stable, indeed, he has no memory of the road, however often trodden. But the third time, that is the future, does not pertain to dumb things.

Mutum animal sensu conprendit praesentia. Praeteritorum reminiscitur, cum id incidit, quo sensus admoneretur; tamquam equus reminiscitur viae, cum ad initium eius admotus est. In stabulo quidem nulla illi viae est quamvis saepe calcatae memoria. Tertium vero tempus, id est futurum, ad muta non pertinet.

How, then, can the nature of those seem perfect to whom the use of perfect time is not granted? For time consists of three parts: past, present, to come. To animals only that which is least is granted, within its course — the present. The memory of the past is rare, and never recalled except by the meeting of present things.

Quomodo ergo potest eorum videri perfecta natura, quibus usus perfecti temporis non est? Tempus enim tribus partibus constat, praeterito, praesente, venturo. Animalibus tantum quod gravissimum est intra cursum datum, praesens. Praeteriti rara memoria est nec umquam revocatur nisi praesentium occursu.

The good of a perfect nature cannot, then, be in an imperfect nature; or, if such a nature has it, plants have it too. Nor do I deny that dumb animals have great and vehement impulses toward the things that seem according to nature, but disordered and confused ones. But the good is never disordered or confused.

Non potest ergo perfectae naturae bonum in inperfecta esse natura, aut si natura talis hoc habet, habent et sata. Nec illud nego, ad ea, quae videntur secundum naturam, magnos esse mutis animalibus impetus et concitatos, sed inordinatos ac turbidos. Numquam autem inordinatum est bonum aut turbidum.

“What then?” you say. “Do dumb animals move in a troubled and ill-arranged way?” I would say they move in a troubled and ill-arranged way, if their nature could take order; as it is, they move according to their own nature. For that is troubled which can at some time also be untroubled; that is anxious which can be free of care. Vice belongs to no one but him to whom virtue can belong; in dumb animals such motion comes from their own nature.

Quid ergo? inquis, muta animalia perturbate et indisposite moventur? Dicerem illa perturbate et indisposite moveri, si natura illorum ordinem caperet; nunc moventur secundum naturam suam. Perturbatum enim id est, quod esse aliquando et non perturbatum potest; sollicitum est, quod potest esse securum. Nulli vitium est, nisi cui virtus potest esse; mutis animalibus talis ex natura sua motus est.

But, not to hold you long: there will be some good in a dumb animal, some virtue, something perfect — but neither good absolutely, nor virtue, nor perfect. For these fall to rational beings alone, to whom it is given to know why, how far, in what way. So the good is in nothing except that in which there is reason.

Sed ne te diu teneam, erit aliquod bonum in muto animali, erit aliqua virtus, erit aliquid perfectum, sed nec bonum absolute nec virtus nec perfectum. Haec enim rationalibus solis contingunt, quibus datum est scire quare, quatenus, quemadmodum. Ita bonum in nullo est, nisi in quo ratio.

You ask now to what this disputation pertains, and what it will profit your soul? I say: it both exercises and sharpens it, and at all events, when it is about to do something, holds it in an honorable occupation. It profits also in that it delays those hurrying toward crooked things. But this too I say: in no way can I profit you more than if I show you your own good, if I separate you from the dumb animals, if I set you with god.

Quo nunc pertineat ista disputatio quaeris, et quid animo tuo profutura sit? Dico: et exercet illum et acuit et utique aliquid acturum occupatione honesta tenet. Prodest autem etiam quo moratur ad prava properantes. Sed et illud dico: nullo modo prodesse possum magis, quam si tibi bonum tuum ostendo, si te a mutis animalibus separo, si cum deo pono.

Why, I say, do you feed and exercise the strength of the body? Nature has granted greater to cattle and to wild beasts. Why do you cultivate your beauty? When you have done everything, you will be surpassed in comeliness by the dumb animals. Why do you comb your hair with vast diligence? Though you let it flow loose in the manner of the Parthians, or bind it after the fashion of the Germans, or scatter it as the Scythians are wont, on any horse a thicker mane will toss, on a lion’s neck it will bristle handsomer. When you have made yourself ready for speed, you will be no match for a little hare.

Quid, inquam, vires corporis alis et exerces? Pecudibus istas maiores ferisque natura concessit. Quid excolis formam? Cum omnia feceris, a mutis animalibus decore vinceris. Quid capillum ingenti diligentia comis? Cum illum vel effuderis more Parthorum vel Germanorum modo vinxeris vel, ut Scythae solent, sparseris, in quolibet equo densior iactabitur iuba, horrebit in leonum cervice formonsior. Cum te ad velocitatem paraveris, par lepusculo non eris.

Will you not, leaving the things in which you must be beaten while you strive in another’s domain, return to your own good? What is this good? A soul, of course, amended and pure, a rival of god, lifting itself above human things, setting nothing of its own outside itself. You are a rational animal. What, then, is the good in you? Perfect reason. Will you call this forth to its own end, to grow as much as ever it can?

Vis tu relictis, in quibus vinci te necesse est, dum in aliena niteris, ad bonum reverti tuum? Quod est hoc? Animus scilicet emendatus ac purus, aemulator dei, super humana se extollens, nihil extra se sui ponens. Rationale animal es. Quod ergo in te bonum est? Perfecta ratio. An tu ad suum finem hanc evocas, in quantum potest plurimum crescere?

Then judge yourself happy, when from it all joy is born to you, when, having seen the things that men snatch at, wish for, and guard, you find nothing — I do not say that you would prefer, but that you would even wish for. I will give you a brief formula by which to measure yourself, by which you may feel that you are already perfect: you will have your own when you understand that the happy are the most wretched. Farewell.

Tunc beatum esse te iudica, cum tibi ex ea gaudium omne nascetur, cum visis, quae homines eripiunt, optant, custodiunt, nihil inveneris, non dico quod malis, sed quod velis. Brevem tibi formulam dabo, qua te metiaris, qua perfectum esse iam sentias: tunc habebis tuum, cum intelleges infelicissimos esse felices. Vale.

S eneca Entire

Moral Letters to Lucilius

Cite this passage

Support this project