Seneca “On the Shortness of Life”

I

Most mortals, my dear Paulinus, complain
About nature’s malevolent ways
As we’re born for a short number of days
Which very rapidly begin to wane
So that, a very few excepted, life
Abandons all the others still in train
To be prepared for her struggles and strife.
Not only does the mob, along with the throng
Of ignorants, as all know well, lament
What is deemed a common scourge, which again
Evokes complaints also from famous men.
This is the reason why that eminent
Physician declared that life’s duration
Is short indeed but art so long instead;
And Aristotle, in fierce contention
On what concerns the nature of things,
Thought unbecoming to people well-read
And wise that animals should get a span
Of life longer than that given to human beings
By five or ten generations, seeing that
Born to many and great exploits is man.
Not too short is the portion of time at
Our disposal but we waste much of it.
Life is ample and long enough to permit,
If it were well expended, the achievement
Of things of exceptional wonderment.
But when life proceeds between luxury
And negligence, when it is wholly spent
Outside the pure domain of honesty
Then it’s necessity that, at long last,
Makes us aware that the life which just passed
We didn’t notice while it was passing away.
Far from being short the life with which we’re graced,
It is we who diminish our earthly stay
But have enough of it, enough to waste;
Like when great wealth worthy of a king
Gets frittered away with little delay
In the hands of a good-for-nothing
Guardian. But thanks to a good keeper’s ruse,
A modest fortune, if turned to good use,
May in the course of time even increase.
Thus he who always regulates his days
Can give his life a new and longer lease.

1 Maior pars mortalium, Pauline, de naturae malignitate conqueritur, quod in exiguum aeui gignimur, quod haec tam uelociter, tam rapide dati nobis temporis spatia decurrant, adeo ut exceptis admodum paucis ceteros in ipso uitae apparatu uita destituat. Nec huic publico, ut opinantur, malo turba tantum et imprudens uulgus ingemuit; clarorum quoque uirorum hic affectus querellas euocauit. 2 Inde illa maximi medicorum exclamatio est: "uitam breuem esse, longam artem". Inde Aristotelis cum rerum natura exigentis minime conueniens sapienti uiro lis: "aetatis illam animalibus tantum indulsisse, ut quina aut dena saecula educerent, homini in tam multa ac magna genito tanto citeriorem terminum stare." 3 Non exiguum temporis habemus, sed multum perdidimus. Satis longa uita et in maximarum rerum consummationem large data est, si tota bene collocaretur; sed ubi per luxum ac neglegentiam diffluit, ubi nulli bonae rei impenditur, ultima demum necessitate cogente, quam ire non intelleximus transisse sentimus. 4 Ita est: non accipimus breuem uitam sed fecimus, nec inopes eius sed prodigi sumus. Sicut amplae et regiae opes, ubi ad malum dominum peruenerunt, momento dissipantur, at quamuis modicae, si bono custodi traditae sunt, usu crescunt: ita aetas nostra bene disponenti multum patet.

II

Why do we complain about nature’s ways?
They’re benignant, and surely if you know
How to use them life may be long indeed:
One man is prey to insatiable greed,
Laborious sedulity has in tow
Another, one man is engaged in needless
Occupations, another reeks of wine;
One man is made torpid by oafishness;
Ambition ever bound and supine
To every single stranger’s opinion
Wears another out; a rushing passion
For trade and the expectation of gain
Pushes another hard through land and main;
Some are driven by an enduring bent
For military life; some are intent
On putting other people in harm’s way;
Some live in fear of every accident;
Some are consumed by the respect they pay
To their ungrateful superiors in free
Servitude; many more search for beauty
Either in others’ or in their own looks.
A vain vague levity, which hardly brooks
Itself, disturbs those whose uncertainty
Presses on towards fluctuating new schemes.
Languid and yawning are some, and it seems
There’s no sure course they would like to plot;
So much so that I certainly do not
Doubt that our chief poet’s prophecy is true:
“We live but part of the life we ought to”
And all the space left over is indeed
No extra life but time we do not need.
Nagging vices, circling around,
Keep men’s eyes well fixed on the ground
Away from all higher contemplation
And utterly prostrated by passion;
Never allowed to regain consciousness,
Once they manage to get a little rest,
Like a deep sea they heave nevertheless
After the wind has fallen, ever pressed
By their passions. Do you think I’m talking
About the people whose ills are manifest?
Observe how contented men, attracting
Crowds, get strangled by their own affluence,
And how many are by possessions stressed.
Many are bled white by their eloquence
And the daily public show of their wit;
Many are pale from continuous pleasures
Or, surrounded by clients, find no leisure.
To sum things up they are such an outfit,
Great and small: one consults an advocate,
One offers legal advice, one is at
Risk, one defends in court, another is
A judge, but each really seems to dismiss
His own interests and spends his time, instead,
For other people. Ask about those whose names
Are learnt by heart and you’ll pinpoint each head
By his character: everyone is the devotee
Of somebody else, but nobody aims
At asserting his own good, and what’s more crazy,
So to speak, than their indignation?
They complain about their superiors’ hubris
Because they give them no attention;
You dare deplore the haughtiness
Of another (you who indeed never look
After yourself) one who nevertheless
Lent you his ear, even though with disdain,
And kept you at his side; you who forsook
To scrutinize yourself and your thoughts’ train.
Therefore you can’t hold duties of that kind
Against somebody if you couldn’t remain
With other persons or within your mind.

1 Quid de rerum natura querimur? Illa se benigne gessit: uita, si uti scias, longa est. [At] alium insatiabilis tenet auaritia; alium in superuacuis laboribus operosa sedulitas; alius uino madet, alius inertia torpet; alium defetigat ex alienis iudiciis suspensa semper ambitio, alium mercandi praeceps cupiditas circa omnis terras, omnia maria spe lucri ducit; quosdam torquet cupido militiae numquam non aut alienis periculis intentos aut suis anxios; sunt quos ingratus superiorum cultus uoluntaria seruitute consumat; 2 multos aut affectatio alienae formae aut suae querella detinuit; plerosque nihil certum sequentis uaga et inconstans et sibi displicens leuitas per noua consilia iactauit; quibusdam nihil quo cursum derigant placet, sed marcentis oscitantisque fata deprendunt, adeo ut quod apud maximum poetarum more oraculi dictum est uerum esse non dubitem: "Exigua pars est uitae qua uiuimus. Ceterum quidem omne spatium non uita sed tempus est. 3 Urgent et circumstant uitia undique nec resurgere aut in dispectum ueri attollere oculos sinunt. Et immersos et in cupiditatem infixos premunt, numquam illis recurrere ad se licet. Si quando aliqua fortuito quies contigit, uelut profundo mari, in quo post uentum quoque uolutatio est, fluctuantur nec umquam illis a cupiditatibus suis otium stat. 4 De istis me putas dicere, quorum in confesso mala sunt? Aspice illos ad quorum felicitatem concurritur:bonis suis effocantur. Quam multis diuitiae graues sunt! Quam multorum eloquentia et cotidiana ostentandi ingenii sollicitatio sanguinem educit! Quam multi continuis uoluptatibus pallent! Quam multis nihil liberi relinquit circumfusus clientium populus! Omnis denique istos ab infimis usque ad summos pererra: hic aduocat, hic adest, ille periclitatur, ille defendit, ille iudicat, nemo se sibi uindicat, alius in alium consumitur. Interroga de istis quorum nomina ediscuntur, his illos dinosci uidebis notis: ille illius ius cultor est, hic illius; suus nemo est. 5 Deinde dementissima quorundam indignatio est: queruntur de superiorum fastidio, quod ipsis adire uolentibus non uacauerint! Audet quisquam de alterius superbia queri, qui sibi ipse numquam uacat? Ille tamen te, quisquis es, insolenti quidem uultu sed aliquando respexit, ille aures suas ad tua uerba demisit, ille te ad latus suum recepit: tu non inspicere te umquam, non audire dignatus es. Non est itaque quod ista officia cuiquam imputes, quoniam quidem, cum illa faceres, non esse cum alio uolebas, sed tecum esse non poteras.

III

Even taking for granted the consent
Among the cream of the intelligent
To this single point, men will never be
Sufficiently amazed at this misty
Peculiarity of the human mind:
Men who wouldn’t suffer their landed estates
To be either occupied or confined
By anybody’s miserly dictates;
Men who would defend them with arms and rocks
Do not object if anybody walks
Into their life, and are indeed somewhat
Foolish to let in those ready to squat.
Men who would never part with an asset
Part with their life as if they were in debt.
Men are stingy when it comes to sticking
To their wealth but it’s quite another thing
When they waste their time, whose hoarding indeed
Would give honourableness even to greed.
Let’s then take one from a crowd of old men:
We see you’re a hundred or more, a rife
Age for an account balance of your life;
From this account you have to deduct
The length of time your lady friends sucked
From you, the disputes you had with your wife,
The hours lost with your superiors or clients,
Or in restraining a bunch of slave truants,
Or the courtesy calls within the city walls;
Then add the ailments of our own making,
Besides the time that was whiled away,
And you’ll see that in the reckoning
You’ll lose several years and a day.
Try to remember when so sure you
Were of your own counsel and how few
Were the days spent in line with your design;
Try to bear in mind the time when you were
Your own master and when it came to pass
To see yourself as in a looking glass,
And undaunted was your rational soul.
What, in your long-drawn-out life, was the goal
You reached. How many of your life’s affairs
Were torn apart catching you unawares;
How much of your life was taken away
By a pain you had to endure in vain,
By a stupid joy, by a fierce passion,
By society’s fun, games and play
Which left you with very little action.
You’ll have some time left over to ensure
That your passing away is premature,
And why? Because you spend your life as if
It was eternal and not a mere jiff,
And never contemplate your own frailty,
Never observe time’s drawn-out course.
You waste it as if it abundantly
Cascaded from a brimming source;
Perhaps the very day you donate
To someone or to some of your affairs
Is the day that seals your earthly fate.
As mortals you fear every single thing
As immortals you feel you are the heirs
To all. You’ll hear most people say
After I’m fifty years old I’ll be basking
In leisure, having retired from business,
And then come my sixtieth birthday
I’ll be dispensed with my official service.
And who will your guarantor actually be
Of a longer life? And who will permit
Your existence to run as you see fit?
Aren’t you ashamed of saving but the debris
Of your days for yourself, having assigned
Those scraps to the inner growth of your mind?
Isn’t it too late then to start living when
It’s time to desist? What dumb oblivion
Lies in mortality which, without fear,
Postpones every praiseworthy intention
To the fiftieth or the sixtieth year,
And commences life from where only few
Have really managed to carry it through?

1 Omnia licet quae umquam ingenia fulserunt in hoc unum consentiant, numquam satis hanc humanarum mentium caliginem mirabuntur: praedia sua occupari a nullo patiuntur et, si exigua contentio est de modo finium, ad lapides et arma discurrunt; in uitam suam incedere alios sinunt, immo uero ipsi etiam possessores eius futuros inducunt; nemo inuenitur qui pecuniam suam diuidere uelit, uitam unusquisque quam multis distribuit! Adstricti sunt in continendo patrimonio, simul ad iacturam temporis uentum est, profusissimi in eo cuius unius honesta auaritia est. 2 Libet itaque ex seniorum turba comprendere aliquem: "Peruenisse te ad ultimum aetatis humanae uidemus, centesimus tibi uel supra premitur annus: agedum, ad computationem aetatem tuam reuoca. Duc quantum ex isto tempore creditor, quantum amica, quantum rex, quantum cliens abstulerit, quantum lis uxoria, quantum seruorum coercitio, quantum officiosa per urbem discursatio; adice morbos quos manu fecimus, adice quod et sine usu iacuit: uidebis te pauciores annos habere quam numeras. 3 Repete memoria tecum quando certus consilii fueris, quotus quisque dies ut destinaueras recesserit, quando tibi usus tui fuerit, quando in statu suo uultus, quando animus intrepidus, quid tibi in tam longo aeuo facti operis sit, quam multi uitam tuam diripuerint te non sentiente quid perderes, quantum uanus dolor, stulta laetitia, auida cupiditas, blanda conuersatio abstulerit, quam exiguum tibi de tuo relictum sit: intelleges te immaturum mori." 4 Quid ergo est in causa? Tamquam semper uicturi uiuitis, numquam uobis fragilitas uestra succurrit, non obseruatis quantum iam temporis transierit; uelut ex pleno et abundanti perditis, cum interim fortasse ille ipse qui alicui uel homini uel rei donatur dies ultimus sit. Omnia tamquam mortales timetis, omnia tamquam immortales concupiscitis. 5 Audies plerosque dicentes: "A quinquagesimo anno in otium secedam, sexagesimus me annus ab officiis dimittet." Et quem tandem longioris uitae praedem accipis? Quis ista sicut disponis ire patietur? Non pudet te reliquias uitae tibi reseruare et id solum tempus bonae menti destinare quod in nullam rem conferri possit? Quam serum est tunc uiuere incipere cum desinendum est? Quae tam stulta mortalitatis obliuio in quinquagesimum et sexagesimum annum differre sana consilia et inde uelle uitam inchoare quo pauci perduxerunt?

IV

You will hear words slip out unawares
From men exalted and prominent
Whose wishes, praises and preferment
place rest in lieu of worldly affairs.
In the meantime they would like to descend
In one piece, perchance, from that pediment,
For no alien force can assail and shake
Fortune which by itself will fall and break.
The Divine Augustus, whom the almighty
Gods more than any other mortal blessed
With gifts, never ceased to entreat for rest
For himself, longing instead to be set free
From the affairs of state and would fain
Tune his speech according to that strain,
The hope of rest that is: his labours would
Be alleviated by the false likelihood,
False but very pleasurable though,
He would just live for himself
After being put on the shelf;
And all that does indeed find an echo
In a letter he did remit to the senate
In which he promised his retirement
Plan wouldn’t indeed be inconsistent
With his former glory or dignity:
“But then I’d better have these things happen
Than let them a mere promise be,
As the yearning for a long-sought leisure
- A subject for a pleasant conversation -
Will give me, in advance, a little pleasure”.
Leisure was a thing of such heavy weight,
though conflicting with his daily grind,
As to be anticipated in his mind.
On himself, he knew, depended the State,
He was the source of fortune for mankind,
And all the peoples, but nevertheless
All his thoughts were appended to the date
On which he could slip out of his greatness.
By experience he knew how sweat drips
Down from a man’s fulgent earthly estate
And its hidden secrets and hardships:
Having been forced to fight against his own
Countrymen first, then his colleagues and
Last his next of kin, much good blood was thrown
Into the sea and all over the land;
He brought war to Macedonia, Egypt,
Sicily, Syria, Asia and nearly
All the regions on the edge of the sea.
After the Roman massacres he flipped
Abroad his worn out armies, pacified
The Alps, subdued the enemies burrowed
In the Imperial Peace, moved back across
The Euphrates, the Danube and the Rine,
The Roman border. Ready were the fine
Edged daggers of Murena, Lepidus,
Caepio and, among others Egnatius,
Waiting for him, right in the heart of Rome.
He had not yet escaped those people’s snares:
His daughter bound, in her father’s own home
to adulterous noblemen’s young heirs,
Along with a woman, mean and scary,
and to Anthony once again ancillary.
Enfeebled and scared the old sovereign
Cut off these sores and the limbs too,
But many more of them instantly grew
As from a body fragile and sanguine
Blood always gushes forth here and there, hence
He found solace in those thoughts and hopes too;
Such was the secret prayer of him who
Power to other people could dispense.

1 Potentissimis et in altum sublatis hominibus excidere uoces uidebis quibus otium optent, laudent, omnibus bonis suis praeferant. Cupiunt interim ex illo fastigio suo, si tuto liceat, descendere; nam ut nihil extra lacessat aut quatiat, in se ipsa fortuna ruit. 2 Diuus Augustus, cui dii plura quam ulli praestiterunt, non desiit quietem sibi precari et uacationem a re publica petere; omnis eius sermo ad hoc semper reuolutus est, ut speraret otium: hoc labores suos, etiam si falso, dulci tamen oblectabat solacio, aliquando se uicturum sibi. 3 In quadam ad senatum missa epistula, cum requiem suam non uacuam fore dignitatis nec a priore gloria discrepantem pollicitus esset, haec uerba inueni: "Sed ista fieri speciosius quam promitti possunt. Me tamen cupido temporis optatissimi mihi prouexit, ut quoniam rerum laetitia moratur adhuc, praeciperem aliquid uoluptatis ex uerborum dulcedine." 4 Tanta uisa est res otium, ut illam, quia usu non poterat, cogitatione praesumeret. Qui omnia uidebat ex se uno pendentia, qui hominibus gentibusque fortunam dabat, illum diem laetissimus cogitabat quo magnitudinem suam exueret. 5 Expertus erat quantum illa bona per omnis terras fulgentia sudoris exprimerent, quantum occultarum sollicitudinum tegerent: cum ciuibus primum, deinde cum collegis, nouissime cum affinibus coactus armis decernere mari terraque sanguinem fudit. Per Macedoniam, Siciliam, Aegyptum, Syriam Asiamque et omnis prope oras bello circumactus Romana caede lassos exercitus ad externa bella conuertit. Dum Alpes pacat immixtosque mediae paci et imperio hostes perdomat, dum [ut] ultra Rhenum et Euphraten et Danuuium terminos mouet, in ipsa urbe Murenae, Caepionis Lepidi, Egnati, aliorum in eum mucrones acuebantur. 6 Nondum horum effugerat insidias: filia et tot nobiles iuuenes adulterio uelut sacramento adacti iam infractam aetatem territabant Paulusque et iterum timenda cum Antonio mulier. Haec ulcera cum ipsis membris absciderat: alia subnascebantur; uelut graue multo sanguine corpus parte semper aliqua rumpebatur. Itaque otium optabat, in huius spe et cogitatione labores eius residebant, hoc uotum erat eius qui uoti compotes facere poterat.

V

Torn between the Catilinas, the Clodians
And the clans of Pompeius and Crassus,
The first sure enemies, the others bogus
Companions with all their shenanigans,
Cicero, afloat with the Republic,
Tried to keep it from sinking like a brick;
And crushed he was at last. Never contented
With the good days and never keen beside
To take life’s adversities in stride.
Many are the times he execrated
That consulship of his,worthy of praise
With all its doubts and all its endless days.
What tearful words he writes in a reply
To Atticus’ letter, when already slain
Had been Pompeius’ father, and in Spain
His son was quick to revivify
The shattered armies. “You ask me” writes he
“what I’m doing here?” I spend my time half free
On my Tusculan farm.” But he regrets the charm
Of his past life with no hope for the time to
Come. Half free was in his own view Cicero
But never will a wise man fall so low,
By Hercules, that’s a term he will shoo!
Never half-free but always free from fetters,
And of himself more master than the others;
And what can indeed above him stand
Who to fortune herself lends his hand?

1 M. Cicero inter Catilinas, Clodios iactatus Pompeiosque et Crassos, partim manifestos inimicos, partim dubios amicos, dum fluctuatur cum re publica et illam pessum euntem tenet, nouissime abductus, nec secundis rebus quietus nec aduersarum patiens, quotiens illum ipsum consulatum suum non sine causa sed sine fine laudatum detestatur! 2 Quam flebiles uoces exprimit in quadam ad Atticum epistula iam uicto patre Pompeio, adhuc filio in Hispania fracta arma refouente! "Quid agam", inquit, "hic, quaeris? Moror in Tusculano meo semiliber." Alia deinceps adicit, quibus et priorem aetatem complorat et de praesenti queritur et de futura desperat. 3 Semiliberum se dixit Cicero: at me hercules numquam sapiens in tam humile nomen procedet, numquam semiliber erit, integrae semper libertatis et solidae, solutus et sui iuris et altior ceteris. Quid enim supra eum potest esse qui supra fortunam est?

VI

Livius Drusus a hot, vehement man,
Under pressure from the large crowds of Italy,
Promulgated new laws that were to fan
The malevolence of the Gracchi Family.
When he was stuck in many a State affair
He couldn’t bring to completion, or just leave there,
He cursed the life for which he seemed unfit
Right from his boyhood, and report has it
He’d never had a proper holiday,
Not even as a lad, as he would say.
He’s the orphan boy who in his teen age
To save his defendants tried to assuage
The judges in the Forum with such clout
That some verdicts he seemed to have wrought out.
Where was so unripe an ambition to break
Forth? You should have known that so precocious
An audacity would leave an atrocious
Private and public tragedy in its wake.
He was still complaining, at a late date,
He’d never had a single day of rest
Since his young days; he had been a real pest
In the Forum and also a dead weight.
People wonder whether he took his own
Life, because without warning he fell prone
On the ground with a wound in his crotch.
If someone had doubts about his readiness
To kill himself none doubted his timeliness;
Now it’s no use to look back and watch
Those, whom others think to be steeped in happiness,
But who’ve passed on themselves unfeigned judgment,
Hating every step of their existence,
Never changing, despite their reproaches,
Neither themselves nor other people, once
Their feelings fall back into the clutches
Of the rat race. And were your life long enough to fill
A thousand years, by Hercules, it would shrink to nil:
Your vices will drain all centuries instead;
The time you have, which your own reason can spread,
Will by nature be urgently hurried away.
You do not try to seize, hold back or just delay,
As superfluous and easy to get,
Our life’s most expeditious asset.

1 Liuius Drusus, uir acer et uehemens, cum leges nouas et mala Gracchana mouisset stipatus ingenti totius Italiae coetu, exitum rerum non peruidens, quas nec agere licebat nec iam liberum erat semel incohatas relinquere, exsecratus inquietam a primordiis uitam dicitur dixisse: uni sibi ne puero quidem umquam ferias contigisse. Ausus est enim et pupillus adhuc et praetextatus iudicibus reos commendare et gratiam suam foro interponere tam efficaciter quidem, ut quaedam iudicia constet ab illo rapta. 2 Quo non erumperet tam immatura ambitio? Scires in malum ingens et priuatum et publicum euasuram tam praecoquem audaciam. Sero itaque querebatur nullas sibi ferias contigisse a puero seditiosus et foro grauis. Disputatur an ipse sibi manus attulerit; subito enim uulnere per inguen accepto collapsus est, aliquo dubitante an mors eius uoluntaria esset, nullo an tempestiua. 3 Superuacuum est commemorare plures qui, cum aliis felicissimi uiderentur, ipsi in se uerum testimonium dixerunt perosi omnem actum annorum suorum; sed his querellis nec alios mutauerunt nec se ipsos: nam cum uerba eruperunt, affectus ad consuetudinem relabuntur. 4 Vestra me hercules uita, licet supra mille annos exeat, in artissimum contrahetur: ista uitia nullum non saeculum deuorabunt; hoc uero spatium, quod quamuis natura currit ratio dilatat, cito uos effugiat necesse est; non enim apprenditis nec retinetis uel ocissimae omnium rei moram facitis, sed abire ut rem superuacuam ac reparabilem sinitis.

VII

Indeed among the worst I choose to count
The outright devotees of lust and wine
Who vilely embrace the life of a swine.
The others soundly err for an amount
Of vainglorious unsubstantial semblance.
Show me the greedy, those who seek vengeance,
The hot-tempered and those to war inclined:
Sinners but sinning with a virile mind.
Glut and the pleasures of the flesh: these
Are the faults that bring man to his knees.
Examine how these people spend their time;
See how long it takes them to do a bit
Of reckoning or cast their nets of crime;
How long they live in fear or prone to hear
Heaps of blarney or, come to think of it,
How long they flatter; what it entails,
In wasted time, fixing each other’s bails;
And the hours lost in many a banquet,
Themselves now a social obligation.
In the end you will have to admit
They have scarcely time left for respiration.
At last indeed all are agreed:
A busy man can’t take on a profession
In the liberal disciplines or
In the field of eloquence, for
A mind deprived of all concentration
Rejects all things hard to assimilate
And forced down into it as a dead weight.
Nothing is for an industrious man less
Appropriate than being alive, but
That’s the hardest science one can assess;
The other arts had their professors too,
Whose students were soon able to pursue
Their studies, achieving a tutor’s skill.
It takes a whole life to have a clue
How it works and, strangely enough, one will
Spend a lifetime in learning how to die;
That’s why that was the greatest men’s sole
Goal up to their old age. They had, that is,
Relinquished all impediments, their whole
Pleasures, official duties and riches;
But several among them just passed away
Saying they ignored what it was all about;
And you figure these people could, no doubt,
Have known it all? So trust me when I say
This: it becomes a man whose merit
And eminence rise above error and crime
To refuse that even a small bit
Be taken away from his own precious time
As, on that account, great is his life’s length
To which he dedicated all his strength;
He never neglected his time, never stood
Idle as there was nothing else that he could,
Like a most parsimonious time-keeper, range
As worthy of it, in case of an exchange;
So he had enough, but not enough indeed
Had they whose life was by the public emptied;
And don’t suppose they will at last rue less
Their loss. You will surely hear most of these,
To whom pure happiness brings great distress,
Sometimes exclaim among the lawyers’ pleas,
The crowds of clients and other miseries:
“why can’t I have a life all of my own?”
And why should you? All the clients who
Ask for your professional help wrench you
Off yourself. How many days were taken
Away by that defendant; how many
By that candidate, or by that banshee
Tired of burying inheritance-mad men;
how many by that malingerer bent
On stimulating and thus circumvent
the gold diggers’ avidity; and then
how many by that strong friend of yours too,
for whom friendship is but an ornament.
But count and scan, I say, every single day
Of your life and you will realize how few
And useless are those left over for you
Yourself. No sooner has that guy had his way
With the fasces, symbol of authority,
That he wants to drop them and repeatedly
Says “when will this year go by?”. And that guy
Celebrating the Games he so much longed for
Planning says “When shall I get rid of this bore?”
That advocate and star of the court of law,
Whose speech draws crowds from out of hearing reach,
Says “when is it time, at last, to withdraw
From legal affairs? People run through
Their life, the present bores them, they bleed
When they long for the future, but he who
Profits from every minute and indeed
Makes every single day, like his life, tick
Neither can his tomorrow crave nor fear;
No hour can bring along a new delight
As all things done to the full become trite,
Chance and fortune will the remainder steer:
In safety is life at this point and one
Can surely add a little something to it,
But nothing can be subtracted just as
More food is given to someone who has
Had his fill already and is about to quit:
Having space but no appetite for an extra bite;
So a man’s life may have been short in spite
Of his white hair and the wrinkles on his face
Giving him just a semblance of an existence.
As if a helmsman, who’d circled the short space
Around a port in a storm hard to ride
Against the furious winds’ haphazard race,
Were reputed to have sailed far and wide,
And not to have been tossed up in a teacup.

1 In primis autem et illos numero qui nulli rei nisi uino ac libidini uacant; nulli enim turpius occupati sunt. Ceteri, etiam si uana gloriae imagine teneantur, speciose tamen errant; licet auaros mihi, licet iracundos enumeres uel odia exercentes iniusta uel bella, omnes isti uirilius peccant: in uentrem ac libidinem proiectorum inhonesta tabes est. 2 Omnia istorum tempora excute, aspice quam diu computent, quam diu insidientur, quam diu timeant, quam diu colant, quam diu colantur, quantum uadimonia sua atque aliena occupent, quantum conuiuia, quae iam ipsa officia sunt: uidebis quemadmodum illos respirare non sinant uel mala sua uel bona. 3 Denique inter omnes conuenit nullam rem bene exerceri posse ab homine occupato, non eloquentiam, non liberales disciplinas, quando districtus animus nihil altius recipit sed omnia uelut inculcata respuit. Nihil minus est hominis occupati quam uiuere: nullius rei difficilior scientia est. Professores aliarum artium uulgo multique sunt, quasdam uero ex his pueri admodum ita percepisse uisi sunt, ut etiam praecipere possent: uiuere tota uita discendum est et, quod magis fortasse miraberis, tota uita discendum est mori. 4 Tot maximi uiri, relictis omnibus impedimentis, cum diuitiis, officiis, uoluptatibus renuntiassent, hoc unum in extremam usque aetatem egerunt ut uiuere scirent; plures tamen ex his nondum se scire confessi uita abierunt, nedum ut isti sciant. 5 Magni, mihi crede, et supra humanos errores eminentis uiri est nihil ex suo tempore delibari sinere, et ideo eius uita longissima est, quia, quantumcumque patuit, totum ipsi uacauit. Nihil inde incultum otiosumque iacuit, nihil sub alio fuit, neque enim quicquam repperit dignum quod cum tempore suo permutaret custos eius parcissimus. Itaque satis illi fuit: iis uero necesse est defuisse ex quorum uita multum populus tulit. 6 Nec est quod putes hinc illos aliquando non intellegere damnum suum: plerosque certe audies ex iis quos magna felicitas grauat inter clientium greges aut causarum actiones aut ceteras honestas miserias exclamare interdum: "Viuere mihi non licet." 7 Quidni non liceat? Omnes illi qui te sibi aduocant tibi abducunt. Ille reus quot dies abstulit? Quot ille candidatus? Quot illa anus efferendis heredibus lassa? Quot ille ad irritandam auaritiam captantium simulatus aeger? Quot ille potentior amicus, qui uos non in amicitiam sed in apparatu habet? Dispunge, inquam, et recense uitae tuae dies: uidebis paucos admodum et reiculos apud te resedisse. 8 Assecutus ille quos optauerat fasces cupit ponere et subinde dicit: "Quando hic annus praeteribit?" Facit ille ludos, quorum sortem sibi obtingere magno aestimauit: "Quando", inquit, "istos effugiam?" Diripitur ille toto foro patronus et magno concursu omnia ultra quam audiri potest complet: "Quando", inquit, "res proferentur?" Praecipitat quisque uitam suam et futuri desiderio laborat, praesentium taedio. 9 At ille qui nullum non tempus in usus suos confert, qui omnes dies tamquam ultimum ordinat, nec optat crastinum nec timet. Quid enim est quod iam ulla hora nouae uoluptatis possit afferre? Omnia nota, omnia ad satietatem percepta sunt. De cetero fors fortuna ut uolet ordinet: uita iam in tuto est. Huic adici potest, detrahi nihil, et adici sic quemadmodum saturo iam ac pleno aliquid cibi: quod nec desiderat [et] capit. 10 Non est itaque quod quemquam propter canos aut rugas putes diu uixisse: non ille diu uixit, sed diu fuit. Quid enim, si illum multum putes nauigasse quem saeua tempestas a portu exceptum huc et illuc tulit ac uicibus uentorum ex diuerso furentium per eadem spatia in orbem egit? Non ille multum nauigauit, sed multum iactatus est.

VIII

I’ m always taken aback when I see
That those who ask for somebody’s time
Are given it very generously.
Givers and takers do not give a dime
About it and only show some interest
For the motivation of the request:
They simply feel it is no big deal
And fool around with that rarest
Of things, whose incorporeal state,
Hard to be seen, having no weight,
Is also dirt-cheap. Pensions and gifts
Are dear to men who toil with diligence
To get them, and then behave like spendthrifts,
As any length of time is worth tuppence,
Or tantamount, they figure, to being free;
But see how the same people once they’re sick
Hasten to embrace their physician’s knee
If death starts stinging them in the quick;
And then see how willing they are to lose
All their riches to steer clear of the noose.
Such is their inner contradiction
That if they were shown the subtraction
Between their past years and those to come
The difference would leave them very glum
And keen to save them too; Yet it’s easy
To eke out a certain scarce quantity
Which might soon get in short supply;
So it’s their duty to diligently
Watch over what they will, no doubt,
One of these days be left without;
And yet you don’t have to think they ignore
Time’s desirability and cost:
They keep offering their own years galore
To the people they seem to love most;
They do not take the subtraction as a windfall.
Which for the takers is no advantage at all,
But they don’t even know if the subtraction
Is viable and will suffice to bear the sacrifice
Of their hidden damage. Nobody will return
Your years, nobody will let you live twice;
Life will go back to where it started and
Won’t change or stay the course or make a noise
Or signal its speed; It’ll flow as planned;
Neither the command of kings and viceroys
Nor the populace’s inclination, therefore,
Will make it advance a little bit more;
It’ll run with no detour and delay,
Exactly like it did on the first day.
Can you scan the future? You’re a busy man,
Life hurries on, death is at hand meanwhile:
Take it in stride with or without a smile.

1 Mirari soleo cum uideo aliquos tempus petentes et eos qui rogantur facillimos; illud uterque spectat propter quod tempus petitum est, ipsum quidem neuter: quasi nihil petitur, quasi nihil datur. Re omnium pretiosissima luditur; fallit autem illos, quia res incorporalis est, quia sub oculos non uenit ideoque uilissima aestimatur, immo paene nullum eius pretium est. 2 Annua, congiaria homines carissime accipiunt et illis aut laborem aut operam aut diligentiam suam locant: nemo aestimat tempus; utuntur illo laxius quasi gratuito. At eosdem aegros uide, si mortis periculum propius admotum est, medicorum genua tangentes, si metuunt capitale supplicium, omnia sua, ut uiuant, paratos impendere! Tanta in illis discordia affectuum est! 3 Quodsi posset quem-admodum praeteritorum annorum cuiusque numerus proponi, sic futurorum, quomodo illi qui paucos uiderent superesse trepidarent, quomodo illis parcerent! Atqui facile est quamuis exiguum dispensare quod certum est; id debet seruari diligentius quod nescias quando deficiat. 4 Nec est tamen quod putes illos ignorare quam cara res sit: dicere solent eis quos ualdissime diligunt paratos se partem annorum suorum dare: dant nec intellegunt: dant autem ita ut sine illorum incremento sibi detrahant. Sed hoc ipsum an detrahant nesciunt; ideo tolerabilis est illis iactura detrimenti latentis. 5 Nemo restituet annos, nemo iterum te tibi reddet. Ibit qua coepit aetas nec cursum suum aut reuocabit aut supprimet; nihil tumultuabitur, nihil admonebit uelocitatis suae: tacita labetur. Non illa se regis imperio, non fauore populi longius proferet: sicut missa est a primo die, curret, nusquam deuertetur, nusquam remorabitur. Quid fiet? Tu occupatus es, uita festinat; mors interim aderit, cui uelis nolis uacandum est.

IX

What on earth is more foolish than the way
Of thinking of some people, those I say
Who are so proud of their own foresight?
Their occupations, arduous and intense,
Aim at a better life at life’s expense.
Their forthcoming plans may form a long array,
But procrastination is life’s main drawback:
One dissipates every single passing day,
The other wastes the present but has a knack
For promising the future. Life’s foremost
Impediment is waiting for the morrow;
Waiting and waiting till the day is lost.
Dispose of what is placed in fortune’s hands,
Let go what is within your reach. Do you know
What you are aiming at? What is the sphere
You are headed for? In uncertain lands
Lie all things to come; live without delay.
Here’s the greatest prophet who comes along
Crying and singing a salutary song,
As if struck by a divine vibration:
The unlucky mortals’ best day will go
First. “Why linger, and then why dither?
It flies off; you don’t take possession
Of it, and even if you do, you know
It’ll fly away; so you’ll have to gather
It in a jiffy, against time’s swiftness;
As from a stream, whose flow rate isn’t boundless,
Water is quickly drawn. It’s the right way
To blame projects whose end is hard to guess
And measured not by time but by the day;
Why are you so sure and indifferent
In the great race of time and indeed
Arrange months and years in an alignment
as long and far-reaching as your greed?
The poet speaks to you about a day,
Today, in fact, which is fleeing away;
Indeed isn’t there the shadow of a doubt
That the best days are the first to fall out
Of the life of all mortals in distress,
The busy ones, that is? Old age which they reach
Quite unprepared, as well as defenceless,
Takes their childlike souls by surprise;
They did not surmise it was getting nearer each
Passing day; just as a conversation,
A reading or a deep meditation
Mislead the travellers who might think they were
Right at their journey’s end before getting there.
So this life’s headlong journey that we make
At a steady pace, asleep or awake,
Will show its truthful face, out of thin air,
To those ever too quick on the uptake.

1 Potestne quicquam stultius esse quam quorundam sensus, hominum eorum dico qui prudentiam iactant? Operosius occupati sunt. Vt melius possint uiuere, impendio uitae uitam instruunt. Cogitationes suas in longum ordinant; maxima porro uitae iactura dilatio est: illa primum quemque extrahit diem, illa eripit praesentia dum ulteriora promittit. Maximum uiuendi impedimentum est exspectatio, quae pendet ex crastino, perdit hodiernum. Quod in manu fortunae positum est disponis, quod in tua, dimittis. Quo spectas? Quo te extendis? Omnia quae uentura sunt in incerto iacent: protinus uiue. 2 Clamat ecce maximus uates et uelut diuino horrore instinctus salutare carmen canit:

Optima quaeque dies miseris mortalibus aeui
Prima fugit.

"Quid cunctaris?", inquit, "Quid cessas? Nisi occupas, fugit." Et cum occupaueris, tamen fugiet: itaque cum celeritate temporis utendi uelocitate certandum est et uelut ex torrenti rapido nec semper ituro cito hauriendum. 3 Hoc quoque pulcherrime ad exprobrandam infinitam cogitationem quod non optimam quamque aetatem sed diem dicit. Quid securus et in tanta temporum fuga lentus menses tibi et annos in longam seriem, utcumque auiditati tuae uisum est, exporrigis? De die tecum loquitur et de hoc ipso fugiente. 4 Num dubium est ergo quin prima quaeque optima dies fugiat mortalibus miseris, id est occupatis? Quorum puerilis adhuc animos senectus opprimit, ad quam imparati inermesque perueniunt; nihil enim prouisum est: subito in illam necopinantes inciderunt, accedere eam cotidie non sentiebant. 5 Quemadmodum aut sermo aut lectio aut aliqua intentior cogitatio iter facientis decipit et peruenisse ante sciunt quam appropinquasse, sic hoc iter uitae assiduum et citatissimum quod uigilantes dormientesque eodem gradu facimus occupatis non apparet nisi in fine.

X

In case I wanted to neatly arrange what
I put forth, I could dispose of a sheaf
Of reasons by which I could prove on the dot
Why the life of the busy is so brief.
Fabianus, a philosopher ancient
And true, unlike his colleagues with airs
Due to their tenured professorial chairs,
Would say that passions require a vibrant
Thrashing; never subtlety and nuance
But assaults made with an unyielding stance.
He didn’t approve at all of sophistry;
Indeed one ought to crush and never tease
Them as they need a lesson and the ease
To see and decry their own falsity.
A man’s life is divided into three
Phases, the past, the present and the days
To come: of these the phase we really
Manage to live is short, the future always
So unreliable, and certain only
What has gone by. It’s on the past alone
Fortune has lost its hold: nobody at all
Has the force to keep the past in thrall.
Busy men are excluded from this zone
Having no time to look back on the past,
And even if they had, they’re loath to cast
An eye on things they might repent about.
Reluctantly they think of the ill-spent
Moments, and furthermore dare not recall
Those days whose vices, even those taken out
Of sight by a little passing enticement,
Appear to be an evident pitfall.
Nobody is likely to look back at all
Upon his past but he whose sound judgment
Never errs. Memory’s disturbing trail
Haunts him who never curbed his ambition,
Who won by force, double-crossed through blackmail,
And wildly pillaged and squandered his wealth.
And yet sacred and blessed is this portion
Of our time, well beyond all human fate
And out of fortune’s domain taken by stealth,
A domain which neither want nor fear
Nor the collapse of health can agitate;
A domain lying undisturbed in a sphere
Perpetual and intrepid whose possession
Is well beyond alien reach and aggression.
The present days appear bit by bit,
by separate moments too, while all
Those gone by are at your beck and call
For an inspection, as you see fit.
The time of those who are busy is detoured,
But roaming into life’s manifold parts
Becomes a mind tranquil and self assured.
Indeed, being burdened by a yoke that smarts,
The souls of busy men can’t look back or bend,
And therefore their very life is bound to wend
Its way down, down into a vast abyss,
Because it’s no use to fill a vase if this
Has no bottom to take and hold all that
You choose to put in it. So it’s not a whit
Crucial the time one gives to an affair
If the purpose of the action isn’t there:
That is, a time compelled to percolate
Through souls lying in a wrecked and troubled state.
The time present is a very short stretch,
So short some think it has no form and weight;
It is always running and hard to catch,
It goes with the flow then sinks down and so
Vanishes into thin air before getting there.
It can no more put up with a delay
Than the sky or the huge canopy
Of the stars above always in full sway
From point to point but never astray.
Therefore the present time exclusively
Belongs to busy men and, being dispatched
In such a rapid way, cannot be snatched;
And the aforesaid time is anyway
From busy people taken away.

1 Quod proposui si in partes uelim et argumenta diducere, multa mihi occurrent per quae probem breuissimam esse occupatorum uitam. Solebat dicere Fabianus, non ex his cathedrariis philosophis, sed ex ueris et antiquis, "contra affectus impetu, non subtilitate pugnandum, nec minutis uulneribus sed incursu auertendam aciem". Non probabat cauillationes: "enim contundi debere, non uellicari." Tamen, ut illis error exprobretur suus, docendi non tantum deplorandi sunt. 2 In tria tempora uita diuiditur: quod fuit, quod est, quod futurum est. Ex his quod agimus breue est, quod acturi sumus dubium, quod egimus certum. Hoc est enim in quod fortuna ius perdidit, quod in nullius arbitrium reduci potest. 3 Hoc amittunt occupati; nec enim illis uacat praeterita respicere, et si uacet iniucunda est paenitendae rei recordatio. Inuiti itaque ad tempora male exacta animum reuocant nec audent ea retemptare quorum uitia, etiam quae aliquo praesentis uoluptatis lenocinio surripiebantur, retractando patescunt. Nemo, nisi quoi omnia acta sunt sub censura sua, quae numquam fallitur, libenter se in praeteritum retorquet: 4 ille qui multa ambitiose concupiit superbe contempsit, impotenter uicit insidiose decepit, auare rapuit prodige effudit, necesse est memoriam suam timeat. Atqui haec est pars temporis nostri sacra ac dedicata, omnis humanos casus supergressa, extra regnum fortunae subducta, quam non inopia, non metus, non morborum incursus exagitet; haec nec turbari nec eripi potest; perpetua eius et intrepida possessio est. Singuli tantum dies, et hi per momenta, praesentes sunt; at praeteriti temporis omnes, cum jusseritis, aderunt, ad arbitrium tuum inspici se ac detineri patientur, quod facere occupatis non uacat. 5 Securae et quietae mentis est in omnes uitae suae partes discurrere; occupatorum animi, uelut sub iugo sint, flectere se ac respicere non possunt. Abit igitur uita eorum in profundum; et ut nihil prodest, licet quantumlibet ingeras, si non subest quod excipiat ac seruet, sic nihil refert quantum temporis detur, si non est ubi subsidat: per quassos foratosque animos transmittitur. 6 Praesens tempus breuissimum est, adeo quidem ut quibusdam nullum uideatur; in cursu enim semper est, fluit et praecipitatur; ante desinit esse quam uenit, nec magis moram patitur quam mundus aut sidera, quorum irrequieta semper agitatio numquam in eodem uestigio manet. Solum igitur ad occupatos praesens pertinet tempus, quod tam breue est ut arripi non possit, et id ipsum illis districtis in multa subducitur.

XI

Do you finally want to know what their
Life is like? Observe how long they expect to
Live. So senile men, the worse for the wear,
Pray for a respite of a year or two
Imagining they’re still combing black hair;
They are under a delusion and willingly
Cheat themselves as they cheated destiny.
And furthermore every time some ailment
Makes them aware of their mortality
They die not as if they would willingly
Leave life but as if wrenched by a violent
Force. Aloud they cry how foolish they were
Not to have lived, and will live in idleness
If they can (they add) survive their illness;
Then they will think how useless was the share
Of wordly goods they got through useless strife;
But why should not be long in space the life
Of those not engaged in any affair?
No part of this life is entrusted to
Others, no part of it is thrown about
Or delivered to fortune or, in turn, out
Of neglect, gets deprived of its value.
Nothing, because of prodigality, is lost;
Nothing had indeed a superfluous cost;
Everything is, so to speak, advantageous.
No matter how short his earthly stay,
A man wise, unwavering and courageous
Will bravely face death on his final day.

1 Denique uis scire quam non diu uiuant? Vide quam cupiant diu uiuere. Decrepiti senes paucorum annorum accessionem uotis mendicant: minores natu se ipsos esse fingunt; mendacio sibi blandiuntur et tam libenter se fallunt quam si una fata decipiant. Iam uero cum illos aliqua imbecillitas mortalitatis admonuit, quemadmodum pauentes moriuntur, non tamquam exeant de uita sed tamquam extrahantur. Stultos se fuisse ut non uixerint clamitant et, si modo euaserint ex illa ualetudine, in otio uicturos; tunc quam frustra parauerint quibus non fruerentur, quam in cassum omnis ceciderit labor cogitant. 2 At quibus uita procul ab omni negotio agitur, quidni spatiosa sit? Nihil ex illa delegatur, nihil alio atque alio spargitur, nihil inde fortunae traditur, nihil neglegentia interit, nihil largitione detrahitur, nihil superuacuum est: tota, ut ita dicam, in reditu est. Quantulacumque itaque abunde sufficit, et ideo, quandoque ultimus dies uenerit, non cunctabitur sapiens ire ad mortem certo gradu.

XII

Perhaps you wonder who those people are
Whom I call busy? You have no reason
To think they’re those whom watchdogs debar
From our basilicas; or, in a reunion,
Are nicely squeezed among their clients; or
The other patrons’; or those whom duty enchains
And sends knocking on their master’s door;
Or those aroused by the ill-gotten gains
To be acquired at a praetor’s auction,
Along with a deep sense of repulsion.
Some seem to live in busy idleness
In their Villas’ suites or under their bed sheets
In the very middle of loneliness,
Unto themselves a pain in the neck too,
Even though hiding from all people’s view.
‘Busy idleness’, as I said above,
Fits their even-tempered life as a glove.
Him you call idle who anxiously rates
Corinthian vases that the furious craze
Of few collectors - employing their days,
Or most of them, among rust-covered plates -
Makes precious? Or him who sits and watches
Boys wrestling in the gym? Shameful debauches!
Indeed such vices strike us as unRoman-like;
Or him who into pairs, by age and hue,
Divides his herds of beasts of burden too?
Or him who feeds the champions of the day?
Idle you call those who for hours stay
In a barber’s shop sitting on the chairs
While off gets plucked their last night’s growth of hairs;
While counsel is taken on each hair’s state;
While every single dishevelled hair thread
Is rearranged or combed over the forehead,
Here and there on either side of the pate.
Great is the rage they fall into if this
Barber has been in his duty remiss,
As if he had a real man’s hair to care;
How mad they get if a single snippet
Is cut off their mane or is out of place,
If all their locks do not fall back with grace;
Which of them wouldn’t rather spare his cowlick
Than avert the ruin of the Republic?
Who wouldn’t rather his head’s health defile
Than spoil the elegance of his hairstyle?
Or have his honesty play second fiddle
To his head of hair parted in the middle?
Idle you call those who long hours pass
Between the comb and the looking glass?
And what about those who get plenty of kicks
From hearing and learning songs and writing lyrics;
They torture their voice, whose natural flow
Is plain, very good and quite simple, then
Add languorous inflections and again
Snap their fingers, go about to and fro
Humming jingles to themselves whose hushed sound
Gives sad and serious things a fit background.
These don’t rest but dawdle in idleness;
I couldn’t count, by Hercules, as leisure
The hours committed to the banquets’ pleasure;
Indeed, I see their solicitousness
When they neatly arrange their silver plate,
Or straighten their fancy boys’
Tunics, or eye how the cook deploys
A wildboar; or watch the brisk gait
Of the glabrous slaves intent on their
Task at a given signal, or how game
Meat is carved with extra care,
And then cut into pieces of the same
Size, or how the wretched boys clean with care
The drunkards’ spittle. Hence comes their fame
For good taste and luxury. Their knavery
Trails them in every single hidden moment
Of their life, and they take no nutriment
Without currying favour and popularity.
You could not consider idle the folk
Who let themselves be carried on a chair,
Or on a palanquin, here and there,
Always present at the afternoon walk,
As if failing to appear would be just
The wrong response to a stroll not worth a dime.
Are for you idle those for whom it is up
To someone else to tell them it is time
To take a bath, to go swimming or to sup?
Languor has sapped their delicate souls so
Much that, left to themselves, they wouldn’t even know
If they’re hungry. I hear one of these sons
Of pleasure once wondered (but must pleasure
Be called this yearning after the unlearning
Of life and all the human traditions!)
Whether he was seated for a leisure
Spell after being hoisted, as it were,
From the tub onto a Sedan chair;
You think this guy has found peace, he who
Ignores if he’s sitting or breathing or
Can see at all? I couldn’t easily say
If I pitied his unfeigned ignorance more
Than his feigned feigning.
An awful lot of things they surely may
Forget for certain, but sometimes they fake
Oblivion and look for delectation
In vices good for people on the make.
Indeed it’s proper for a humble and
Contemptible man to know his life’s planned
Schedule. Do you think the mimes articulate
False evidence whenever they excoriate
Luxury? By Hercules, they omit
A lot more things than they counterfeit.
So many incredible and copious
Vices have managed to come to light
In our own century, so ingenious
And unique, that we may then indict
The mimes for carelessness. Is somebody
Such an effete to the point of trusting
Another to know whether he’s sitting
Or not? He cannot therefore idle be,
He’s sick instead, actually he’s quite dead;
Idle is he who’s aware of his idling
But how can this half-dead man who needs prompting
To be sure how his body is really inclined
Be the master of the workings of his mind?

1 Quaeris fortasse quos occupatos uocem? Non est quod me solos putes dicere quos a basilica immissi demum canes eiciunt, quos aut in sua uides turba speciosius elidi aut in aliena contemptius, quos officia domibus suis euocant ut alienis foribus illidant, [aut] hasta praetoris infami lucro et quandoque suppuraturo exercet. 2 Quorundam otium occupatum est: in uilla aut in lecto suo, in media solitudine, quamuis ab omnibus recesserint, sibi ipsi molesti sunt: quorum non otiosa uita dicenda est sed desidiosa occupatio. Illum tu otiosum uocas qui Corinthia, paucorum furore pretiosa, anxia subtilitate concinnat et maiorem dierum partem in aeruginosis lamellis consumit? qui in ceromate (nam, pro facinus! ne Romanis quidem uitiis laboramus) spectator puerorum rixantium sedet? qui iumentorum suorum greges in aetatum et colorum paria diducit ? qui athletas nouissimos pascit? 3 Quid? Illos otiosos uocas quibus apud tonsorem multae horae transmittuntur, dum decerpitur si quid proxima nocte succreuit, dum de singulis capillis in consilium itur, dum aut disiecta coma restituitur aut deficiens hinc atque illinc in frontem compellitur? Quomodo irascuntur, si tonsor paulo neglegentior fuit, tamquam uirum tonderet! Quomodo excandescunt si quid ex iuba sua decisum est, si quid extra ordinem iacuit, nisi omnia in anulos suos reciderunt! Quis est istorum qui non malit rem publicam turbari quam comam suam? qui non sollicitior sit de capitis sui decore quam de salute? qui non comptior esse malit quam honestior? Hos tu otiosos uocas inter pectinem speculumque occupatos? 4 Quid illi qui in componendis, audiendis, discendis canticis operati sunt, dum uocem, cuius rectum cursum natura et optimum et simplicissimum fecit, in flexus modulationis inertissimae torquent, quorum digiti aliquod intra se carmen metientes semper sonant, quorum, cum ad res serias, etiam saepe tristes adhibiti sunt, exauditur tacita modulatio? Non habent isti otium, sed iners negotium. 5 Conuiuia me hercules horum non posuerim inter uacantia tempora, cum uideam quam solliciti argentum ordinent, quam diligenter exoletorum suorum tunicas succingant, quam suspensi sint quomodo aper a coco exeat, qua celeritate signo dato glabri ad ministeria discurrant, quanta arte scindantur aues in frusta non enormia, quam curiose infelices pueruli ebriorum sputa detergeant: ex his elegantiae lautitiaeque fama captatur et usque eo in omnes uitae secessus mala sua illos sequuntur, ut nec bibant sine ambitione nec edant. 6 Ne illos quidem inter otiosos numeraueris qui sella se et lectica huc et illuc ferunt et ad gestationum suarum, quasi deserere illas non liceat, horas occurrunt, quos quando lauari debeant, quando natare, quando cenare alius admonet: [et] usque eo nimio delicati animi languore soluuntur, ut per se scire non possint an esuriant. 7 Audio quendam ex delicatis (si modo deliciae uocandae sunt uitam et consuetudinem humanam dediscere), cum ex balneo inter manus elatus et in sella positus esset, dixisse interrogando: "Iam sedeo?" Hunc tu ignorantem an sedeat putas scire an uiuat, an uideat, an otiosus sit? Non facile dixerim utrum magis miserear, si hoc ignorauit an si ignorare se finxit. 8 Multarum quidem rerum obliuionem sentiunt, sed multarum et imitantur; quaedam uitia illos quasi felicitatis argumenta delectant; nimis humilis et contempti hominis uidetur scire quid facias: i nunc et mimos multa mentiri ad exprobrandam luxuriam puta. Plura me hercules praetereunt quam fingunt et tanta incredibilium uitiorum copia ingenioso in hoc unum saeculo processit, ut iam mimorum arguere possimus neglegentiam. Esse aliquem qui usque eo deliciis interierit ut an sedeat alteri credat! 9 Non est ergo hic otiosus, aliud illi nomen imponas; aeger est, immo mortuus est; ille otiosus est cui otii sui et sensus est. Hic uero semiuiuus, cui ad intellegendos corporis sui habitus indice opus est, quomodo potest hic ullius temporis dominus esse?

XIII

It would be too long to examine one
By one those who just frittered away all
Their days moving pawns on a board, playing ball
Or getting their skin scorched under the Sun.
Indeed, not idle are those whose hard to
Come by satisfactions are no windfall.
No doubt at all about the busy
Idleness of those who briskly pursue
Unprofitable literary
Studies, copious among the Romans too,
Like verifying the number of Ulysses’
Oarsmen or whether the Odyssey
Was prior to the Iliad written, or if these
Works are likewise by the same author, and
Then other such things that uselessly
Enrich your inner self. People can’t stand
Being exposed to learned, pedantic tales
Stemming from the Greeks’ passion for details.
There! The empty passion that gives value
To vain learning has caught the Romans too;
The other day I heard somebody say
What the fields were in which pioneers
Had been the Roman leaders, and that first
Was that Caius Duilius who dispersed
An enemy fleet. First, among the cheers
Of the triumphant citizens, Curius
Dentatus with his elephants; and thus
As long as these facts, though not aimed at true
Glory, are concerned with a patriot’s call,
Their knowledge brings no benefits at all,
But their resplendent vanity can glue
Our attention; and that’s why our special
sympathy is reserved for those who knew
Him that first put the Romans on a vessel;
He was Claudius a.k.a. Codex
Which was the name given to decks
Of tablets by our forefathers, that is
The public tables then called codicis;
And the usage survives, to this day,
Of calling codicariae the barges
Daily plying the Tiber waterway;
And a likely event that enlarges
What I’m talking about is that the man
Who first downtown Messana overran,
Valerius Corvinus I mean, who was named
(The first of the Valerii family)
Messana after the captured city;
But the populace little by little claimed
The right to exchange the n for an l;
You’ll perhaps let somebody look well
Into this matter, how it was Sulla, that is,
Who first had the lions’ large bodies,
Free from the prescribed shackles, stroll
In the circus to be put to the pole
By King Bacchus’ especially chosen
Javelin throwers? Let this be forgiven
Too. But is it really useful to know
Pompey was the first who put in a row
Eighteen elephants to be matched in
A battle with criminals within
A circus ring? He, a man so prominent
In the City; one of the famed ancient
Dignitaries, whose good hearts were aglow,
Deemed memorable the very events
Where men were killed among new torments.
They fight to the death: it isn’t enough! So
They tear each other to pieces: no way!
Let them be crushed by the enormous mass
Of brutes. It’d be much better to bypass
Such things lest some commander might one day
Learn or envy the ways of the beasts of prey.
What gloom can moments of great happiness
Cast upon our mind! One thought he was high
Above nature when he threw countless
numbers of human beings in distress
To wild beasts born under an alien sky;
When he goaded diverse animals into
Animal wars, shedding rivers of blood
In front of the Roman people; he who
Would have them all, without ado,
Be swamped by a surging gory flood.
Later on, having been imposed upon
By Alexandrine perfidy, he gave
Himself his last and lowest slave
The task of his own annihilation,
Seeing there and then the vain illusion
Of his surname. But, getting back to where
I started from to show the needless care
Of some people on the same occasion,
The same person said that Metellus,
Who crushed the Carthaginians in Sicily,
Alone among the Romans, made thus
Parade the elephants of the enemy,
The entire prey: one hundred and twenty;
Or that Sulla was the last Roman who
Extended the pomerium, a taboo
For the people of ancient times since
Never was the land of a province
To be unproperly used to enlarge the bounds
Reserved for newly annexed Italic grounds.
Is it more useful to know that tale
Than being aware the Aventine Height
Lies well beyond the pomerium’s pale,
One way or the other way, as he would say,
Either because it was to that site
The Plebeians retired, or because the birds’
Flight drew on the sky’s inauspicious words
For Remus, and so on with numberless
Things crammed with lies or imbued with falseness.
Assuming then it is in good faith all
They say, and their written guarantee too,
Whose errors will these things partially stall?
Whose passionate longings will they check? Who
Will they make stronger, fairer or more
Generous? Our Fabianus would therefore
Say he had better shun at times the toil
Of studies and thus save the midnight oil.

1 Persequi singulos longum est quorum aut latrunculi aut pila aut excoquendi in sole corporis cura consumpsere uitam. Non sunt otiosi quorum uoluptates multum negotii habent. Nam de illis nemo dubitabit quin operose nihil agant, qui litterarum inutilium studiis detinentur, quae iam apud Romanos quoque magna manus est. 2 Graecorum iste morbus fuit quaerere quem numerum Ulixes remigum habuisset, prior scripta esset Ilias an Odyssia, praeterea an eiusdem esset auctoris, alia deinceps huius notae, quae siue contineas nihil tacitam conscientiam iuuant, siue proferas non doctior uidearis sed molestior. 3 Ecce Romanos quoque inuasit inane studium superuacua discendi; his diebus audiui quendam referentem quae primus quisque ex Romanis ducibus fecisset: primus nauali proelio Duilius uicit, primus Curius Dentatus in triumpho duxit elephantos. Etiamnunc ista, etsi ad ueram gloriam non tendunt, circa ciuilium tamen operum exempla uersantur; non est profutura talis scientia, est tamen quae nos speciosa rerum uanitate detineat. 4 Hoc quoque quaerentibus remittamus quis Romanis primus persuaserit nauem conscendere (Claudius is fuit, Caudex ob hoc ipsum appellatus quia plurium tabularum contextus caudex apud antiquos uocatur, unde publicae tabulae codices dicuntur et naues nunc quoque ex antiqua consuetudine quae commeatus per Tiberim subuehunt codicariae uocantur) ; 5 sane et hoc ad rem pertineat, quod Valerius Coruinus primus Messanam uicit et primus ex familia Valeriorum, urbis captae in se translato nomine, Messana appellatus est paulatimque uulgo permutante litteras Messala dictus: 6 num et hoc cuiquam curare permittes quod primus L. Sulla in circo leones solutos dedit, cum alioquin alligati darentur, ad conficiendos eos missis a rege Boccho iaculatoribus? Et hoc sane remittatur: num et Pompeium primum in circo elephantorum duodeuiginti pugnam edidisse commissis more proelii noxiis hominibus, ad ullam rem bonam pertinet? Princeps ciuitatis et inter antiquos principes (ut fama tradidit) bonitatis eximiae memorabile putauit spectaculi genus nouo more perdere homines. Depugnant? Parum est. Lancinantur? Parum est: ingenti mole animalium exterantur! 7 Satius erat ista in obliuionem ire, ne quis postea potens disceret inuideretque rei minime humanae. O quantum caliginis mentibus nostris obicit magna felicitas! Ille se supra rerum naturam esse tunc credidit, cum tot miserorum hominum cateruas sub alio caelo natis beluis obiceret, cum bellum inter tam disparia animalia committeret, cum in conspectum populi Romani multum sanguinis funderet mox plus ipsum fundere coacturus; at idem postea Alexandrina perfidia deceptus ultimo mancipio transfodiendum se praebuit, tum demum intellecta inani iactatione cognominis sui. 8 Sed, ut illo reuertar unde decessi et in eadem materia ostendam superuacuam quorundam diligentiam, idem narrabat Metellum, uictis in Sicilia Poenis triumphantem, unum omnium Romanorum ante currum centum et uiginti captiuos elephantos duxisse; Sullam ultimum Romanorum protulisse pomerium, quod numquam prouinciali sed Italico agro adquisito proferre moris apud antiquos fuit. Hoc scire magis prodest quam Auentinum montem extra pomerium esse, ut ille affirmabat, propter alteram ex duabus causis, aut quod plebs eo secessisset aut quod Remo auspicante illo loco aues non addixissent, alia deinceps innumerabilia quae aut farta sunt mendaciis aut similia? 9 Nam ut concedas omnia eos fide bona dicere, ut ad praestationem scribant, tamen cuius ista errores minuent? cuius cupiditates prement? quem fortiorem, quem iustiorem, quem liberaliorem facient? Dubitare se interim Fabianus noster aiebat an satius esset nullis studiis admoueri quam his implicari.

XIV

Idle is called the life of those alone
To philosophy sworn, as not only
Are they ready to profit by their own
But by other people’s lives, accordingly:
Unless we are ungratefully sour,
Those sacred opinion makers of great
Fame laid down the foundations of our
Life. Their efforts lead us to many deeds
Of great beauty brought to the light straight
From dark places. No past centuries’ seeds
Have been denied to us, we know them all;
And if we want to transcend human weakness,
Confined as it is, through our soul’s greatness,
The time at our disposal is not small.
With Socrates it’s possible to talk;
With Carneades to be in two minds;
With Epicurus of Samos one finds
Rest; with the Cynics man can walk
Out of his own nature whose tricks
Can be kept in check by the Stoics.
As nature allows us to be part
Of every age why should we not start
Raising our soul, during our short and
Frail days, to what is eternal, grand,
And part of the best human intuition?
Those whose societal duties spur on and on
Manage to work up and aggravate
Themselves and the others to a state
Of total madness. After stepping on
Every single threshold, missing not one,
After roaming far and wide from home to home,
To get their interested greetings done,
How few people, torn by desire and passion,
Can they meet in such a conurbation?
How many will repel them, nevertheless,
Because of sleep, bad manners and excess;
How many will cut them feigning haste but
Only after the pain of a drawn-out wait;
How many will skirt the hall to reach the gate,
Sneaking through hidden doors, brazen-faced,
As if it weren’t unkindlier to outwit
Than shut off those who in the twilit
Hours, being from the previous day’s hangover blurred,
Will answer with a very superb yawn
On hearing the name a thousand times whispered,
From half closed lips, to those wretched men
Who interrupt their sleep in the predawn
Hours, right on the very moment when
They put to the test the other people’s rest.
We may say they are to duty impressed,
Those who to Zeno and Pythagoras are close
And to Democritus and Aristotle too,
Along with Theophrastus masters of virtue.
None of them will be busy; he who goes
To them (day and night at all the mortals’ beck and call)
Will surely be permitted to depart
With full hands and a contented heart.

1 Soli omnium otiosi sunt qui sapientiae uacant, soli uiuunt; nec enim suam tantum aetatem bene tuentur: omne aeuum suo adiciunt; quicquid annorum ante illos actum est, illis adquisitum est. Nisi ingratissimi sumus, illi clarissimi sacrarum opinionum conditores nobis nati sunt, nobis uitam praeparauerunt. Ad res pulcherrimas ex tenebris ad lucem erutas alieno labore deducimur; nullo nobis saeculo interdictum est, in omnia admittimur et, si magnitudine animi egredi humanae imbecillitatis angustias libet, multum per quod spatiemur temporis est. 2 Disputare cum Socrate licet, dubitare cum Carneade, cum Epicuro quiescere, hominis naturam cum Stoicis uincere, cum Cynicis excedere. Cum rerum natura in consortium omnis aeui patiatur incedere, quidni ab hoc exiguo et caduco temporis transitu in illa toto nos demus animo quae immensa, quae aeterna sunt, quae cum melioribus communia? 3 Isti qui per officia discursant, qui se aliosque inquietant, cum bene insanierint, cum omnium limina cotidie perambulauerint nec ullas apertas fores praeterierint, cum per diuersissimas domos meritoriam salutationem circumtulerint, quotum quemque ex tam immensa et uariis cupiditatibus districta urbe poterunt uidere? 4 Quam multi erunt quorum illos aut somnus aut luxuria aut inhumanitas summoueat! Quam multi qui illos, cum diu torserint, simulata festinatione transcurrant! Quam multi per refertum clientibus atrium prodire uitabunt et per obscuros aedium aditus profugient, quasi non inhumanius sit decipere quam excludere! Quam multi hesterna crapula semisomnes et graues illis miseris suum somnum rumpentibus ut alienum exspectent, uix alleuatis labris insusurratum miliens nomen oscitatione superbissima reddent! 5 Hos in ueris officiis morari putamus, licet dicant, qui Zenonem, qui Pythagoran cotidie et Democritum ceterosque antistites bonarum artium, qui Aristotelen et Theophrastum uolent habere quam familiarissimos. Nemo horum non uacabit, nemo non uenientem ad se beatiorem, amantiorem sui dimittet, nemo quemquam uacuis a se manibus abire patietur; nocte conueniri, interdiu ab omnibus mortalibus possunt.

XV

Not one of these will make you die;
All will instruct you how to face your end;
Not one of these will profit by
Your years but will some of his own append
To yours. Their conversation will never put
You in danger, nor will you ever be kaput
Because of their friendship. The deference
They deserve will cost you just a few pence;
All you want from them you’ll get and again
They’ll have no say at all on what you drain
From them: ancient wise men, whose patronage
Secures blithe senior years with no dotage;
You’ll be able to tackle issues big
And small with them, and also daily dig
Up personal counsel, and so hear
The pure truth devoid of any jeer,
Or praises free from adulation’s snares:
Praises like a model one can look up to.
As we are wont to say, there’s nothing we can do
About the selection of our forebears;
But it is allowed, to people of worth,
To be the arbiters of their own birth.
There are families of great talents:
Pick out the one that freely assents
To your adoption and you will obtain
Not only a name but parts of their domain,
Not to be run in a miserly
Sordid way: the more you give away
The better will your company be.
These will lead you to eternity
Raising you to that very zone
From which nobody can be thrown
Off. The only way by which mortality
Can win immortality, eventually.
Honours, monuments, and all ambition
Builds up, by means of labour or decree,
Will soon collapse and time’s long duration
Demolishes and disturbs all, but not,
In any case, those things whose consecration,
To wisdom due, is beyond abolition.
Each succeeding age will respectively
Add its own tribute of veneration.
Seeing that Envy itself is certainly
Confined within its line of sight, we pay
More attention to things placed far away.
Therefore a wise man’s life, as people say,
Is long and lasts forever and a day,
And isn’t bound by the same boundary
Binding the likes of you and me.
The laws of Humankind certainly don’t bind
A man like him who like a god has all
History’s centuries at his beck and call.
The time is past? It lingers in his mind,
The present days he can freely employ,
And foresees the future, and this alloy
Of all three will turn his life into a ball.

1 Horum te mori nemo coget, omnes docebunt; horum nemo annos tuos conteret, suos tibi contribuet; nullius ex his sermo periculosus erit, nullius amicitia capitalis, nullius sumptuosa obseruatio. Feres ex illis quicquid uoles; per illos non stabit quominus quantum plurimum ceperis haurias. 2 Quae illum felicitas, quam pulchra senectus manet, qui se in horum clientelam contulit! Habebit cum quibus de minimis maximisque rebus deliberet, quos de se cotidie consulat, a quibus audiat uerum sine contumelia, laudetur sine adulatione, ad quorum se similitudinem effingat. 3 Solemus dicere non fuisse in nostra potestate quos sortiremur parentes, forte nobis datos: bonis uero ad suum arbitrium nasci licet. Nobilissimorum ingeniorum familiae sunt: elige in quam adscisci uelis; non in nomen tantum adoptaberis, sed in ipsa bona, quae non erunt sordide nec maligne custodienda: maiora fient quo illa pluribus diuiseris. 4 Hi tibi dabunt ad aeternitatem iter et te in illum locum ex quo nemo deicitur subleuabunt. Haec una ratio est extendendae mortalitatis, immo in immortalitatem uertendae. Honores, monumenta, quicquid aut decretis ambitio iussit aut operibus exstruxit cito subruitur, nihil non longa demolitur uetustas et mouet; at iis quae consecrauit sapientia nocere non potest; nulla abolebit aetas, nulla deminuet; sequens ac deinde semper ulterior aliquid ad uenerationem conferet, quoniam quidem in uicino uersatur inuidia, simplicius longe posita miramur. 5 Sapientis ergo multum patet uita; non idem illum qui ceteros terminus cludit; solus generis humani legibus soluitur; omnia illi saecula ut deo seruiunt. Transiit tempus aliquod? hoc recordatione comprendit; instat? hoc utitur; uenturum est? hoc praecipit. Longam illi uitam facit omnium temporum in unum collatio.

XVI

They lead the shortest life those whose past
Rests in oblivion; whose present days
Are not heeded; whose future preys
On their fears and their life is overcast
With ills. Too late those poor things guess,
On the very hour of their demise,
Their days were lost in busy idleness;
Nor is the death they invoke likewise
The evidence of an outstretched life span:
Unsettled emotions they can’t well scan
Torment them no end and indeed appear
To make them run just into what they fear;
Therefore they often pray instead
For death, the very thing they dread.
It is no evidence of a long existence
The slow pace of the hours of their day,
And during the long wait for the night dinner
They complain they can’t while the time away;
But once they’re freed from all occupations,
And left in idleness, they start to waver
And don’t know how to adjust their schedule
To let the hours pass quickly and seem less dull;
So it’s to some other occupation they turn,
And during every single minute left they burn
Wishing, by Hercules, they could skip the days
Until the date of the gladiatorial frays,
Or the spectacles, or the pleasures they yearn for.
They can’t bear to put off things they counted on,
Whereas the time they love is short and flies,
And far shorter because they are unwise
And cannot concentrate on just one passion;
Not long but odious do they find the daily game,
While the nocturnal hours dissolve apace
Between the bottle and a slut’s embrace;
Hence the fury of the poets who inflame
With tales the human fallacies: they say
That Jove involved in carnal pleasure
Doubled a night’s amount of leisure
Time: That’s like giving plenty of leeway
To our vices blaming the gods instead;
And don’t they deem extravagant a night,
Waiting for which they have lost a whole day,
Acquired at the expense of a godhead
And spent up and about spying the light?

1 Illorum breuissima ac sollicitissima aetas est qui praeteritorum obliuiscuntur, praesentia neglegunt, de futuro timent: cum ad extrema uenerunt, sero intellegunt miseri tam diu se dum nihil agunt occupatos fuisse. 2 Nec est quod hoc argumento probari putes longam illos agere uitam, quia interdum mortem inuocant: uexat illos imprudentia incertis affectibus et incurrentibus in ipsa quae metuunt; mortem saepe ideo optant quia timent. 3 Illud quoque argumentum non est quod putes diu uiuentium, quod saepe illis longus uidetur dies, quod, dum ueniat condictum tempus cenae, tarde ire horas queruntur; nam si quando illos deseruerunt occupationes, in otio relicti aestuant nec quomodo id disponant aut extrahant sciunt. Itaque ad occupationem aliquam tendunt et quod interiacet omne tempus graue est, tam me hercules quam cum dies muneris gladiatorii edictus est, aut cum alicuius alterius uel spectaculi uel uoluptatis exspectatur constitutum, transilire medios dies uolunt. 4 Omnis illis speratae rei longa dilatio est; at illud tempus quod amant breue est et praeceps breuiusque multo, suo uitio; aliunde enim alio transfugiunt et consistere in una cupiditate non possunt. Non sunt illis longi dies, sed inuisi; at contra quam exiguae noctes uidentur, quas in complexu scortorum aut uino exigunt! 5 Inde etiam poetarum furor fabulis humanos errores alentium, quibus uisus est Iuppiter uoluptate concubitus delenitus duplicasse noctem; quid aliud est uitia nostra incendere quam auctores illis inscribere deos et dare morbo exemplo diuinitatis excusatam licentiam? Possunt istis non breuissimae uideri noctes quas tam care mercantur? Diem noctis exspectatione perdunt, noctem lucis metu.

XVII

Their very pleasures, with terrors tainted,
Unquiet and agitated, are haunted,
And when their joy seems to be unsurpassed
They wonder whether it is going to last;
This state of mind made kings themselves rue
Their strength: Their great luck brought them no delight,
Their hidden fate was a source of great fright.
The most arrogant Persian King too,
While spreading out his army on a plain
So vast he couldn’t count the slew
Of soldiers-at-arms but only ascertain
Their number by the expanse of the terrain,
Shed tears because within a hundred years
No one of all that assembled fair youth
Would be alive. Yet it was he, forsooth,
He himself who wept, the root cause of their death
At sea, on land, and liable for their last breath
In battle or while clearing the battlefields:
The soldiers’ centennial was his dread but instead
He saw them come back from the fight on their shields;
Are not their joys in anxiety steeped? For
They rest in unsound soil, hence the terror
Stemming from their inherent emptiness.
What do you expect their moments of sadness
To be like if by their own admission
Those very moments, when they tower on
And above Mankind, are less than sincere;
The greatest wealth is filled with anxious fear.
Whenever on fortune rely you must
It’s only the best fortune you should trust;
It takes another success to back success;
And vows are made to prop up fulfilled vows;
It’s unstable indeed what we possess
By chance: the higher they haul
You up the harder you fall;
Things bound to collapse bring about distress;
The life therefore of those who are hard pressed
To fill up a hard to defend egg nest
Is necessarily brief and hopeless;
They strenuously get what they need
And anxiously keep what they got;
The time lost beyond recall matters not
And new occupations indeed
Substitute old ones, like say these two:
Hope, always with hope within earshot,
And ambition with ambition in view;
Rather than put an end to wretchedness
They try to change the nature of distress;
As soon as our career is no longer there
To plague us, other people’s honours bear
Off our time. Are we no more under fire
As candidates? We’ll get stuck with the choir
Of the electors; Have we removed the strain
Of having to press charges? We’ll get the pain
Of being judges; Have we doffed a judge’s robe?
We’ll be assigned instead to those who probe.
He aged as a paid manager of the estates
Of other people, and just now administrates
His own capital. The army gave Marius
The sack and now the Consulship agitates
Him. It’s in a great hurry that Quintus
Passes the dictatorship, and see how
He’ll be called back to power from the plough.
Scipio, for great feats still green, will proceed
Against the Carthaginians. Hannibal
He won, and Antiochus too. The laurel
Of his consulship was he, and indeed
Sponsor for his brother’s office. But for
His opposition he would have a place
Next to Jove. He saved the state with good grace
But will be stuck in civil discord’s sorry plight,
And after the godlike honours, when still
Young refused, an exile’s ambition will
allow his declining years plenty of delight.
Never will causes of perturbations
Be lacking, whether happy or unhappy.
Life will move on through many occupations,
And leisure will always wishful thinking be.

I Ipsae uoluptates eorum trepidae et uariis terroribus inquietae sunt subitque cum maxime exsultantis sollicita cogitatio: "Haec quam diu?" Ab hoc affectu reges suam fleuere potentiam, nec illos magnitudo fortunae suae delectauit, sed uenturus aliquando finis exterruit. 2 Cum per magna camporum spatia porrigeret exercitum nec numerum eius sed mensuram comprenderet Persarum rex insolentissimus, lacrimas profudit, quod intra centum annos nemo ex tanta iuuentute superfuturus esset; at illis admoturus erat fatum ipse qui flebat perditurusque alios in mari alios in terra, alios proelio alios fuga, et intra exiguum tempus consumpturus illos quibus centesimum annum timebat. 3 Quid quod gaudia quoque eorum trepida sunt? Non enim solidis causis innituntur, sed eadem qua oriuntur uanitate turbantur. Qualia autem putas esse tempora etiam ipsorum confessione misera, cum haec quoque quibus se attollunt et super hominem efferunt parum sincera sint? 4 Maxima quaeque bona sollicita sunt nec ulli fortunae minus bene quam optimae creditur; alia felicitate ad tuendam felicitatem opus est et pro ipsis quae successere uotis uota facienda sunt. Omne enim quod fortuito obuenit instabile est: quod altius surrexerit, opportunius est in occasum. Neminem porro casura delectant; miserrimam ergo necesse est, non tantum breuissimam uitam esse eorum qui magno parant labore quod maiore possideant. 5 Operose assequuntur quae uolunt, anxii tenent quae assecuti sunt; nulla interim numquam amplius redituri temporis ratio est: nouae occupationes ueteribus substituuntur, spes spem excitat, ambitionem ambitio. Miseriarum non finis quaeritur, sed materia mutatur. Nostri nos honores torserunt? plus temporis alieni auferunt; candidati laborare desiimus? suffragatores incipimus; accusandi deposuimus molestiam? iudicandi nanciscimur; iudex desiit esse? quaesitor est; alienorum bonorum mercennaria procuratione consenuit? suis opibus distinetur. 6 Marium caliga dimisit? consulatus exercet; Quintius dictaturam properat peruadere? ab aratro reuocabitur. Ibit in Poenos nondum tantae maturus rei Scipio; uictor Hannibalis uictor Antiochi, sui consulatus decus fraterni sponsor, ni per ipsum mora esset, cum loue reponeretur: ciuiles seruatorem agitabunt seditiones et post fastiditos a iuuene diis aequos honores iam senem contumacis exilii delectabit ambitio. Numquam derunt uel felices uel miserae sollicitudinis causae; per occupationes uita trudetur; otium numquam agetur, semper optabitur.

XVIII

Get away from the crowd Paulinus dearest
And retire at last (you who in the past
Long suffered the strife of a hard-knock life)
To a more tranquil harbour where to get some rest.
Think of the force of the waves you had to face
And of the multifold tempests you rode out,
Some public and some private, while the trace
Left by your virtue has been well proved through
The feats, tough and unquiet, we know all about;
See what in private life virtue can do
Whose best part has been given to the State.
Reserve some of your time for yourself too;
I don’t call you to a dull, helpless
Rest nor to drown all your spry nature
In sleep or in the earthly pleasure
Held dear by the low-born populace;
You can’t honestly call that leisure;
And you will find new occupations that are
Nobler than the jobs you’ve done so well so far,
To be pursued in an enclosure
Secluded and quiet. You superintend
The world’s accounts as disinterestedly
As if they weren’t yours and as diligently
As if they were your own; as scrupulously
As if they were public. You’re well liked in
A post which generates animosity;
But believe me it’s better to begin
To draw up the balance of one’s life
Than the appraisal of the public wheat.
Call back this force with which your soul is rife
And which is fit for every greatest feat,
From an office honorary and true,
But inappropriate for those who pursue
A life of bliss. Consider that your young days
Spent in liberal studies should not end in
The storing of thousands of bushels of grain.
You had promised to be sure to upraise
Yourself to something bigger and higher.
Men of proven frugality
And laborious activity
Are certainly found wheresoever
One needs them. Slow pack animals are
Better suited to carry heavy weights
Than racehorses among whose noble traits
Is a nimbleness no one would ever bar
By means of bulky packs. In addition
Think of all the load of apprehension
You would have to bear if forced to butt
Heads with the capacious human gut;
A starving populace hears no reason
Nor listens to the call of honesty,
And never bends however strong the plea.
Quite recently on just about the day
When Caligula was passing away
Full of disdainful malevolence
- If the afterlife can have a conscience -
At the thought that the City’s populace would
Survive him; and yet the quantity of food
Was enough only for a week and one
Day. He had pontoon bridges built for fun
With the Empire’s funds he had squeezed out,
While on the Romans large loomed the drought,
That ultimate curse to the besieged … averse.
His urge to imitate a foreign king,
Unhappily superb, almost cost us hunger
Death and the ruin of every single thing:
The appendage of starvation as it were.
What was the reaction of those who
Were then in charge of all public catering,
Whom the mob’s stones, iron, fire menaced and the sting
Of Emperor Caligula too?
They most carefully covered up a bane
So great festering in the depths. Again
Rightly so. It’s a lot easier to give a new lease
Of life to a patient not informed of his disease.
To know one’s own malady may be unwise
As it may be the cause of one’s demise.

1 Excerpe itaque te uulgo, Pauline carissime, et in tranquilliorem portum non pro aetatis spatio iactatus tandem recede. Cogita quot fluctus subieris, quot tempestates partim priuatas sustinueris, partim publicas in te conuerteris; satis iam per laboriosa et inquieta documenta exhibita uirtus est; experire quid in otio faciat. Maior pars aetatis, certe melior rei publicae datast: aliquid temporis tui sume etiam tibi. 2 Nec te ad segnem aut inertem quietem uoco, non ut somno et caris turbae uoluptatibus quicquid est in te indolis uiuidae mergas; non est istud adquiescere: inuenies maiora omnibus adhuc strenue tractatis operibus, quae repositus et securus agites. 3 Tu quidem orbis terrarum rationes administras tam abstinenter quam alienas, tam diligenter quam tuas, tam religiose quam publicas. In officio amorem consequeris, in quo odium uitare difficile est; sed tamen, mihi crede, satius est uitae suae rationem quam frumenti publici nosse. 4 Istum animi uigorem rerum maximarum capacissimum a ministerio honorifico quidem sed parum ad beatam uitam apto reuoca, et cogita non id egisse te ab aetate prima omni cultu studiorum liberalium ut tibi multa milia frumenti bene committerentur; maius quiddam et altius de te promiseras. Non derunt et frugalitatis exactae homines et laboriosae operae; tanto aptiora [ex]portandis oneribus tarda iumenta sunt quam nobiles equi, quorum generosam pernicitatem quis umquam graui sarcina pressit? Cogita praeterea quantum sollicitudinis sit ad tantam te molem obicere: cum uentre tibi humano negotium est; nec rationem patitur nec aequitate mitigatur nec ulla prece flectitur populus esuriens. Modo modo intra paucos illos dies quibus C. Caesar periit (si quis inferis sensus est) hoc grauissime ferens quod decedebat populo Romano superstite, septem aut octo certe dierum cibaria superesse! Dum ille pontes nauibus iungit et uiribus imperi ludit, aderat ultimum malorum obsessis quoque, alimentorum egestas; exitio paene ac fame constitit et, quae famem sequitur, rerum omnium ruina furiosi et externi et infeliciter superbi regis imitatio. 6 Quem tunc animum habuerunt illi quibus erat mandata frumenti publici cura, saxa, ferrum, ignes, Gaium excepturi? Summa dissimulatione tantum inter uiscera latentis mali tegebant, cum ratione scilicet: quaedam enim ignorantibus aegris curanda sunt, causa multis moriendi fuit morbum suum nosse.

XIX

Dedicate yourself to an occupation
More tranquil and secure. Do you reckon
It’s all one whether you take care
How wheat is conveyed to a ware-
House with no fraud and lack of attention
Carrier-side; how it isn’t damaged by high
Moisture, as fermentation makes it humid;
That both its quantity and weight comply;
Or whether you accost things grand and sacred
To delve into the gods’ own nature,
Appearance, condition and pleasure;
Into your soul’s last venue and destiny
After we are freed from this mortal body;
Into the force that keeps the heavier things
In the world’s centre, but the lighter ones springs
Upward, and puts fire above all and moves
The stars along their orbits and approves
Of other wondrous elements. Do you
Want to turn your soul back to all this when
You’ve left this earth? Your blood and your strength too
Are still with you. It’s a goal well within our ken,
But on a higher plane where the liberal arts
Will offer you a slew of noble parts:
Love itself and the practice of virtue,
The oblivion of passions, how to live and die,
and the great quiet you’ll achieve by and by.

1 Recipe te ad haec tranquilliora, tutiora, maiora! Simile tu putas esse, utrum cures ut incorruptum et a fraude aduehentium et a neglegentia frumentum transfundatur in horrea, ne concepto umore uitietur et concalescat, ut ad mensuram pondusque respondeat, an ad haec sacra et sublimia accedas sciturus quae materia sit dei, quae uoluptas, quae condicio, quae forma; quis animum tuum casus exspectet; ubi nos a corporibus dimissos natura componat; quid sit quod huius mundi grauissima quaeque in medio sustineat, supra leuia suspendat, in summum ignem ferat, sidera uicibus suis excitet; cetera deinceps ingentibus plena miraculis? 2 Vis tu relicto solo mente ad ista respicere! Nunc, dum calet sanguis, uigentibus ad meliora eundum est. Exspectat te in hoc genere uitae multum bonarum artium, amor uirtutum atque usus, cupiditatum obliuio, uiuendi ac moriendi scientia, alta rerum quies.

XX

Those who are busy are a sorry sight
For sure, but a lot worse are those who
Mind other people’s business and at night
Sleep when other people sleep while by day
From other people’s gait take a cue.
They take a cue for those feelings too
Above all others, like hate and love;
If they want to know how brief is their share
Of life let them scan the years they can spare
Out of it. So don’t be envious every time you
See somebody around the Forum wear
A praetexta quite often and hear too
Often his name mentioned: once, twice and thrice …
All that is costly and life is its price.
They waste all their years but one for the fame
Of that single year which will bear their name.
Life will let down a few, relinquish some before they finish
Their early struggle for lofty aspirations.
After crawling on their knees through indignities
Of all kinds they’ll realize how foolish
It was to seek honours for their tomb inscriptions.
Some were instead by their old age betrayed
Having, like young men, their fresh hope arrayed
Towards great, immoderate propositions;
What a sorry sight is the death in court
Of an old lawyer during a lawsuit,
Before an ignorant crowd, to support
The case of unknown parties to a dispute;
And how sad to see collapse from fatigue
One tired of life but still ever in pursuit
Of work amid some businesslike intrigue.
No less disgraceful is the demise
Of the fellow alert, money-wise,
Up to his very last moment, as it were,
Amid the laughter of the impatient heir.
Which brings to mind what I can’t omit here:
The example of that Turannius, a most
Diligent old man, who in his ninetieth year
Was relieved by Caligula of his post.
He then had himself laid down on a bier
With his servants around, in mourning deep;
They all wore black and didn’t cease to weep
Until Caesar put him back in his place.
Is it so good to die during a race?
This is how most people are inclined;
The urge to work runs at a faster pace
Than their strength. They fight feebleness and deem
Retirement from work to be a sore grind.
When one is more than fifty the Law states
One is unfit for the military
And the Senate convokes no dignitary
Who’s over sixty. The Law regulates
Retirement better than retirees do;
So while they rob others and rob themselves too,
Mutually destroying their tranquillity,
And spoiling each other’s felicity,
Life goes by fruitless, joyless with no value
To enhance their spirit. Out of their sight
Is death or any illusory hope;
Some even have the pretension to cope
With things well beyond their life span, like the site
Of their great burial place, the dedications
Of public funerals, the loud processions.
Those people’s funerals should be by the light
Of waxen candles and torches tall
As if they almost hadn’t lived at all.

1 Omnium quidem occupatorum condicio misera est, eorum tamen miserrima, qui ne suis quidem laborant occupationibus, ad alienum dormiunt somnum, ad alienum ambulant gradum, amare et odisse, res omnium liberrimas, iubentur. Hi si uolent scire quam breuis ipsorum uita sit, cogitent ex quota parte sua sit. Cum uideris itaque praetextam saepe iam sumptam, cum celebre in foro nomen, ne inuideris: ista uitae damno parantur. Vt unus ab illis numeretur annus, omnis annos suos conterent. Quosdam antequam in summum ambitionis eniterentur, inter prima luctantis aetas reliquit; quosdam, cum in consummationem dignitatis per mille indignitates erepsissent, misera subiit cogitatio laborasse ipsos in titulum sepulcri; quorundam ultima senectus, dum in nouas spes ut iuuenta disponitur, inter conatus magnos et improbos inualida defecit. 2 Foedus ille quem in iudicio pro ignotissimis litigatoribus grandem natu et imperitae coronae assensiones captantem spiritus liquit; turpis ille qui uiuendo lassus citius quam laborando inter ipsa officia collapsus est; turpis quem accipiendis immorientem rationibus diu tractus risit heres. 3 Praeterire quod mihi occurrit exemplum non possum: Turannius fuit exactae diligentiae senex, qui post annum nonagesimum, cum uacationem procurationis ab C. Caesare ultro accepisset, componi se in lecto et uelut exanimem a circumstante familia plangi iussit. Lugebat domus otium domini senis nec finiuit ante tristitiam quam labor illi suus restitutus est. Adeone iuuat occupatum mon? 4 Idem plerisque animus est; diutius cupiditas illis laboris quam facultas est; cum imbecillitate corporis pugnant, senectutem ipsam nullo alio nomine grauem iudicant quam quod illos seponit. Lex a quinquagesimo anno militem non legit, a sexagesimo senatorem non citat: difficilius homines a se otium impetrant quam a lege. 5 Interim dum rapiuntur et rapiunt, dum alter alterius quietem rumpit, dum mutuo miseri sunt, uita est sine fructu, sine uoluptate, sine ullo profectu animi; nemo in conspicuo mortem habet, nemo non procul spes intendit, quidam uero disponunt etiam illa quae ultra uitam sunt, magnas moles sepulcrorum et operum publicorum dedicationes et ad rogum munera et ambitiosas exsequias. At me hercules istorum funera, tamquam minimum uixerint, ad faces et cereos ducenda sunt.