Moral Letters to Lucilius

​I am waiting for your letters, in which you may inform me what new things the circuit of all Sicily has shown to you, and above all, more certain details about Charybdis itself. For I know very well that Scylla is a rock and indeed not terrible to sailors; but whether Charybdis responds to the fables, I desire to be written to me in detail, and, if you happen to have observed it—and indeed it is worthy of your observation—make us more certain whether it is driven into whirlpools by only one wind or if every tempest equally twists that sea, and whether it is true that whatever is snatched away by that whirlpool of the strait is dragged concealed for many miles and emerges around the Tauromenitan shore.

​If you write these things to me in detail, then I shall dare to charge you, for my sake, to ascend Etna as well, which some people infer to be consuming itself and gradually sinking from this fact: that formerly it used to be shown to those sailing further away. This can happen, not because the height of the mountain is descending, but because the fire has vanished and is cast out less violently and less abundantly, for the same reason that the smoke also is more sluggish during the day. However, neither is incredible, neither that the mountain, which is daily devoured, is diminished, nor that it remains the same, because it is not the mountain itself that is eaten away, but the fire, conceived in some subterranean valley, boils up and feeds on other things. In the mountain itself, the fire does not have its nourishment, but its path.

​In Lycia, there is a very well-known region, which the inhabitants call Hephaestion, where the soil is pierced in several places, which an innocuous fire circles without any damage to growing things. Therefore, the region is fertile and grassy, with the flames burning nothing, but only shining with a relaxed and gentle force.

​But let us reserve those matters to be investigated then, when you write to me how far the snows are from the very mouth of the mountain, which not even summer melts; so safe are they from the neighboring fire. However, there is no reason why you should credit this care to me. For you were going to devote this to your disease, even if no one commanded it.

​What shall I give you not to describe Etna in your poem, not to touch upon this topic that is customary to all poets? Nothing prevented Ovidius from treating it, because Virgilius had already filled it. Not even both of them deterred Cornelius Severus. Moreover, this topic has yielded successfully to everyone, and those who went before seem to me not to have snatched away what could be said, but to have opened it up.

​It makes a great difference whether you approach a consumed material or one that is tilled; it grows day by day, and what has been found does not stand in the way of those who will find more. Moreover, the condition of the lastcomer is best; he finds words ready-made, which, when arranged differently, have a new face. Nor does he lay hands on them as if they were someone else’s.

​For they are public property. Either I do not know you, or Etna makes your mouth water. Already you desire to write something grand and equal to your predecessors. For your modesty does not allow you to hope for more, which is so great in you that you seem to me about to draw back the strength of your talent if there should be a danger of winning; so great is your reverence for your predecessors.

​Among other things, wisdom has this good: no one can be surpassed by another, except while ascending. When you have reached the summit, things are equal, there is no place for increase, one stands still. Does the sun add to its size? Does the moon proceed beyond what it is accustomed to? The seas do not grow. The universe preserves the same appearance and measure.

​Those things which have filled their proper magnitude cannot exalt themselves. Whoever are wise will be matched and equal. Each of them will have his own gifts: one will be more affable, another more agile, another more prompt in speaking, another more eloquent; but that which is under discussion, which makes one happy, is equal in all.