- Source
- Seneca, Lucius Annaeus. Ad Lucilium Epistulae Morales, Vol 1-3. Gummere, Richard Mott, editor. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd., 1917-1925.
- Translation
- AI-generated (gemini-3.5-flash) — machine translation; may contain errors
- Languages
- 日本語 · English · 简体中文 · 한국어
- CTS URN
- urn:cts:latinLit:phi1017.phi015.humanitext-lat2:104.19-104.27
- Generated
- Humanitext Reader · reader.humanitext.ai · 2026-11-08
Seneca argues that travel cannot resolve human vices or anxieties, and that one should instead reform their own mind and follow the examples of noble predecessors. He presents Socrates, who endured various hardships, domestic troubles, and political crises with an unconquered spirit, as the ultimate model of endurance.
Peregrinatio non facit medicum, non oratorem, nulla ars loco discitur. Quid ergo? Sapientia, ars omnium maxima, in itinere colligitur? Nullum est, mihi crede, iter, quod te extra cupiditates, extra iras, extra metus sistat; aut si quod esset, agmine facto gens illuc humana pergeret. Tamdiu ista urguebunt mala macerabuntque per terras ac maria vagum, quamdiu malorum gestaveris causas.
Travel does not make a physician or an orator; no art is learned by place. What then? Is wisdom, the greatest art of all, gathered on a journey? Believe me, there is no journey that can set you outside desires, outside anger, outside fears; or if there were any such, the human race would march thither in a body. As long as you carry the causes of your evils, those evils will press upon you and wear you down as you wander through lands and seas.
Fugam tibi non prodesse miraris? Tecum sunt, quae fugis. Te igitur emenda, onera tibi detrahe et demenda desideria intra salutarem modum contine. Omnem ex animo erade nequitiam. Si vis peregrinationes habere iucundas, comitem tuum sana. Haerebit tibi avaritia, quamdiu avaro sordidoque convixeris; haerebit tumor, quamdiu superbo conversaberis. Numquam saevitiam in tortoris contubernio pones. Incendent libidines tuas adulterorum sodalicia.
Do you wonder that flight does not benefit you? What you flee from is with you. Therefore, amend yourself, take away your burdens, and contain the desires that must be removed within a wholesome limit. Erase all wickedness from your mind. If you wish to have pleasant travels, cure your companion. Greed will stick to you as long as you live with a greedy and sordid person; pride will stick to you as long as you associate with a proud one. You will never lay aside cruelty in the company of a torturer. Associations with adulterers will inflame your lusts.
Si velis vitiis exui, longe a vitiorum exemplis recedendum est. Avarus, corruptor, saevus, fraudulentus, multum nocituri, si prope a te fuissent,1 intra te sunt. Ad meliores transi: cum Catonibus vive, cum Laelio, cum Tuberone. Quod si convivere etiam Graecis iuvat, cum Socrate, cum Zenone versare; alter te docebit mori, si necesse erit,2 alter, antequam necesse erit. vive cum Chrysippo, cum Posidonio: hi tibi tradent humanorum divinorumque notitiam, hi iubebunt in opere esse nec tantum scite loqui et in oblectationem audientium verba iactare, sed animum indurare et adversus minas erigere.
If you wish to be stripped of vices, you must withdraw far from the examples of vices. The greedy man, the corrupter, the cruel, the deceitful, who would have done much harm if they had been near you, are within you. Pass over to better men: live with the Catos, with Laelius, with Tubero. But if you also like to live with Greeks, associate with Socrates, with Zeno; the one will teach you to die if it is necessary, the other before it is necessary. Live with Chrysippus, with Posidonius: these will hand down to you the knowledge of human and divine things, these will command you to be in action, and not only to speak skillfully and toss words for the pleasure of the hearers, but to harden your mind and raise it against threats.
Unus est enim huius vitae fluctuantis et turbidae portus eventura contemnere, stare fidenter ac paratum tela fortunae adverso pectore excipere, non latitantem nec tergiversantem.
For the only harbor of this fluctuating and turbulent life is to despise what is to happen, to stand confidently and prepared to receive the weapons of Fortune with an opposing breast, neither hiding nor turning away.
Magnanimos nos natura produxit et ut quibusdam animalibus ferum dedit, quibusdam subdolum, quibusdam pavidum, ita nobis gloriosum et excelsum spiritum, quaerentem ubi honestissime, non ubi tutissime vivat, simillimum mundo, quem quantum mortalium passibus licet, sequitur aemulaturque. Profert se, laudari et aspici credit. Dominus omnium est, supra omnia est;
Nature produced us high-minded, and just as she gave a wild nature to some animals, a cunning one to others, and a fearful one to others, so she gave to us a proud and lofty spirit, seeking where it may live most honorably, not where it may live most safely, very like the universe, which it follows and emulates as far as mortal steps allow. It presents itself forward, and believes itself to be praised and looked upon. It is master of all things, it is above all things;
itaque nulli se rei summittat, nihil illi videatur grave, nihil quod virum incurvet. "Terribiles visu3 formae letumque labosque;" minime quidem, si quis rectis oculis intueri illa possit et tenebras perrumpere. Multa per noctem habita terrori dies vertit ad risum. "Terribiles visu formae letumque labosque": egregie vergilius noster non re dixit terribiles esse, sed visu, id est videri, non esse. Quid, inquam, in" istis est tam formidabile quam fama vulgavit?
therefore let it submit itself to no thing, let nothing seem heavy to it, nothing that can bow a man down. “Shapes terrible to view, and death, and toil;” by no means indeed, if one can look upon them with straight eyes and break through the darkness. Many things held as a terror through the night, the day turns to laughter. “Shapes terrible to view, and death, and toil”: our Virgil said outstandingly that they are terrible not in reality, but to view, that is, to seem so, not to be so. What, I ask, is there in those things so formidable as rumor has spread abroad?
Quid est, obsecro te, Lucili, cur timeat laborem vir, mortem homo? Totiens mihi occurrunt isti, qui non putant fieri posse quicquid facere non possunt, et aiunt nos loqui maiora quam quae humana natura sustineat.
Why is it, I pray you, Lucilius, why should a man fear toil, a human being fear death? So often do I run into those who do not think that whatever they cannot do can be done, and say that we speak of things greater than what human nature can bear.
At quanto ego de illis melius existimo! Ipsi quoque haec possunt facere, sed nolunt. Denique quem umquam ista destituere temptantem? Cui non faciliora apparuere in actu? Non quia difficilia sunt, non audemus,4 sed quia non audemus, difficilia sunt.
But how much better I think of them! They themselves also can do these things, but they are unwilling. Finally, whom did those things ever fail when attempting them? To whom did they not appear easier in the act? It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare, but because we do not dare, they are difficult.
Si tamen exemplum desideratis, accipite Socraten, perpessicium senem, per omnia aspera iactatum, invictum tamen et paupertate, quam graviorem illi domestica onera faciebant, et laboribus, quos militares quoque pertulit. Quibus ille domi exercitus est, sive uxorem eius reminiscimur moribus feram, lingua petulantem, sive liberos indociles et matri quam patri similiores. Si vere reputes, aut in bello fuit aut in tyrannide aut in libertate bellis ac tyrannis saeviore. viginti et septem annis pugnatum est; post finita arma triginta tyrannis noxae dedita est civitas, ex quibus plerique inimici erant.
If, however, you desire an example, take Socrates, a long-suffering old man, tossed through all adversities, yet unconquered both by poverty, which his domestic burdens made heavier for him, and by toils, which he also endured in military service. With what was he exercised at home, whether we remember his wife, wild in manners and impudent in tongue, or his children, untamable and more like their mother than their father. If you consider truly, he was either in war, or under tyranny, or in a liberty more cruel than wars and tyrants. For twenty-seven years the war was fought; after the arms were finished, the state was delivered up to the thirty tyrants, of whom most were his enemies.
- 104.21multum nocituri, si prope a te fuissent
The future active participle nocituri is accompanied by a past contrafactual conditional clause si prope a te fuissent (subjunctive pluperfect), functioning as a hypothetical apodosis ("those who would have done much harm, if they had been near you"). This emphasizes that these vices are not external, but already within (intra te sunt).
- 104.21alter te docebit mori, si necesse erit, alter, antequam necesse erit
The correlative alter... alter contrasts the two previously mentioned philosophers (Socrates and Zeno). The former (Socrates) teaches one to die honorably when necessary, while the latter (Zeno) teaches one to 'die' (freeing oneself from the fear of death and attachments) before it becomes physically necessary.
- 104.24Terribiles visu
visu is an ablative of the supine, acting as an ablative of specification modifying the adjective terribiles ("terrible to view"). Seneca exploits this Virgilian phrase to argue that things are not "actually" (re) terrible, but only in "appearance" (visu), meaning they seem so rather than are so (videri, non esse).
- 104.26Non quia difficilia sunt, non audemus
The negative non negates the entire quia clause, producing the famous paradoxical maxim: "It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare, but because we do not dare, they are difficult."