Moral Letters to Lucilius

​Wherever I turn, I see the proofs of my old age. I had gone to my suburban estate and was complaining about the expenses of the dilapidated building. The bailiff told me that it was not the fault of his negligence, that he was doing everything he could, but that the villa was old. This villa grew up under my hands; what is to become of me, if stones of my own age are so decayed?

​Angry with him, I seized the next opportunity to express my resentment. “It is obvious,” I said, “that these plane trees are being neglected; they have no leaves. How knotty and dried-up the branches are, how sad and squalid the trunks! This would not have happened if anyone had dug around them, if anyone had watered them.” He swore by my genius that he was doing everything, that his care was not lacking in any respect, but that they were very old. Between you and me, I had planted them myself, I had seen their very first leaf.

​Turning to the door, I said, “Who is that person? That decrepit fellow, and rightly moved to the door? For he is looking outwards. Where did you get that fellow? Why did it please you to carry away someone else’s corpse?” But he said, “Don’t you recognize me? I am Felicio, to whom you used to bring clay figurines. I am the son of Philositus the bailiff, your little pet.” “Perfectly,” I said, “that fellow is delirious. Has that little baby actually become my pet? It is absolutely possible; his teeth are falling out just now.”

​I owe this to my suburban estate, that my old age appeared to me, wherever I turned. Let us embrace and love it; it is full of pleasure, if you know how to use it. Fruits are most agreeable when they are passing away; the greatest beauty of childhood is at its end; the last drink delights those devoted to wine, that which submerges them, which puts the finishing touch on their drunkenness.

​Whatever is most pleasant in itself, every pleasure postpones to its own end. The most pleasant age is that which is already sloping downwards, yet not headlong. And even that which is standing on the outermost tile, I judge to have its own pleasures. Or this very thing succeeds to the place of pleasures: to need nothing. How sweet it is to have exhausted and left behind one’s desires!

”It is troublesome,” you say, “to have death before one’s eyes.” First of all, that ought to be as much before the eyes of a young man as of an old man. For we are not summoned according to the census. Secondly, no one is so old that he improperly hopes for one day. Moreover, a single day is a step of life. The whole of life consists of parts and has larger circles drawn around smaller ones. There is one which embraces and surrounds all; this extends from birth to the last day. There is another which closes the years of youth. There is one which binds the whole of childhood within its circuit. Then there is the year by itself, containing within itself all seasons, by the multiplication of which life is composed. A month is girt by a tighter circle. A day has the narrowest turn, but even this goes from its beginning to its end, from sunrise to sunset.

​Therefore Heraclitus, to whom the obscurity of his speech gave his nickname, said, “One day is equal to every day.” Different people have taken this in different ways. For one said that it is equal in hours, and he does not lie; for if a day is a time of twenty-four hours, it is necessary that all days be equal among themselves, because the night has what the day lost. Another says that one day is equal to all in likeness; for the longest space of time has nothing which you may not find also in a single day, light and night, and into eternity the day makes these same alternating turns many times, not otherwise than being at one time more contracted, at another more prolonged.

​Therefore, every day must be so ordered as if it brings up the rear and completes and fills up life. Pacuvius, who made Syria his own by possession, when he had performed a funeral sacrifice for himself with wine and those banquet feasts, was carried from the dinner table to his bedchamber in such a way that, among the applause of his favorites, this was sung to music: βεβίωται, βεβίωται.

​There was no day on which he did not carry himself out to burial. What he used to do from a bad conscience, let us do from a good one, and when we are about to go to sleep, let us say joyful and cheerful: “I have lived, and I have completed the course which fortune had given.” If God adds tomorrow, let us receive it joyfully. That man is happiest and a secure possessor of himself, who expects tomorrow without anxiety. Whoever has said “I have lived,” rises daily to a profit.

​But now I must close my letter. “Is it coming to me thus,” you say, “without any gift?” Do not fear; it brings something with it. Why did I say “something”? Much. For what is more illustrious than this voice, which I hand over to it to be carried to you? “It is an evil to live in necessity, but to live in necessity is no necessity.” Why should there be none? On all sides, many short and easy paths lie open to liberty. Let us give thanks to God that no one can be kept in life. It is permitted to trample upon necessity itself.

”Epicurus said this,” you say. “What have you to do with what belongs to another?” What is true is mine. I shall persist in thrusting Epicurus upon you, so that those who swear by the words of a master, and do not estimate what is said, but by whom, may know that the best things are common property. FAREWELL.