- 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-lat2:88.37-88.46
- Generated
- Humanitext Reader · reader.humanitext.ai · 2026-11-07
Seneca criticizes grammarians for pursuing trivial and useless details, arguing that philosophers have also fallen into similar unproductive subtleties. He reviews various skeptical schools to illustrate how excessive intellectual refinement leads to absolute doubt rather than real wisdom.
Quid? Quod ista liberalium artium consectatio molestos, verbosos, intempestivos, sibi placentes facit et ideo non discentes necessaria, quia supervacua didicerunt. Quattuor milia librorum Didymus grammaticus scripsit. Misererer,1 si tam multa supervacua legisset. In his libris de patria Homeri quaeritur, in his de Aeneae matre vera, in his libidinosior Anacreon an ebriosior vixerit, in his an Sappho publica fuerit, et alia, quae erant dediscenda, si scires.
What of the fact that this pursuit of liberal arts makes people troublesome, wordy, untimely, self-pleasing, and for that reason not learning necessary things, because they have learned superfluous ones? Didymus the grammaticist wrote four thousand books. I should pity him, if he had read so many superfluous things. In these books it is asked about the homeland of Homer, in these about the true mother of Aeneas, in these whether Anacreon lived more lustful or more drunken, in these whether Sappho was a public woman, and other things which, if you knew them, were to be unlearned.
I nunc et longam esse vitam nega.2 Sed ad nostros quoque cum perveneris, ostendam multa securibus reddenda. Magno impendio temporum, magna alienarum aurium molestia laudatio haec constat: O hominem litteratum! Simus hoc titulo rusticiore contenti: O virum bonum!
Go now and deny that life is long. But when you come to our own writers as well, I shall show you that many things must be given over to the axes. At a great cost of time, and with great trouble to others’ ears, this praise is established: “O learned man!” Let us be content with this more rustic title: “O good man!”
Itane est? Annales evolvam omnium gentium et quis primus carmina scripserit quaeram? Quantum temporis inter Orphea intersit et Homerum, cum fastos non habeam, computabo? Et Aristarchi ineptias, quibus aliena carmina conpunxit,3 recognoscam et aetatem in syllabis conteram? Itane in geometriae pulvere haerebo? Adeo mihi praeceptum illud salutare excidit: "Tempori parce"? Haec sciam? Et quid ignorem?
Is it so? Shall I turn over the annals of all nations and inquire who first wrote poems? Shall I compute how much time intervenes between Orpheus and Homer, when I do not have a calendar? And shall I review the follies of Aristarchus, with which he marked the poems of others, and waste my lifetime on syllables? Shall I thus stick in the dust of geometry? Has that salutary precept so completely slipped my mind: “Spare your time”? Should I know these things? And what should I remain ignorant of?
Apion grammaticus, qui sub C. Caesare tota circulatus est Graecia et in nomen Homeri ab omnibus civitatibus adoptatus, aiebat Homerum utraque materia consummata, et Odyssia et Iliade, principium adiecisse operi suo, quo bellum Troianum complexus est. Huius rei argumentum adferebat, quod duas litteras in primo versu posuisset ex industria librorum suorum numerum continentes.
Apion the grammaticist, who under C. Caesar traveled through all Greece and was adopted by all cities into the name of Homer, used to say that Homer, after completing both subjects, the Odyssey and the Iliad, added a beginning to his work, in which he embraced the Trojan War. As a proof of this matter, he brought forward the fact that he had intentionally placed two letters in the first verse containing the number of his books.
Talia sciat oportet, qui multa vult scire, non cogitare,4 quantum temporis tibi auferat mala valetudo, quantum occupatio publica, quantum occupatio privata, quantum occupatio cotidiana, quantum somnus. Metire aetatem tuam; tam multa non capit.
He who wants to know many things must know such things, not thinking how much time is taken away from you by bad health, how much by public occupation, how much by private occupation, how much by daily occupation, how much by sleep. Measure your lifetime; it does not hold so many things.
De liberalibus studiis loquor; philosophi quantum habent supervacui, quantum ab usu recedentis! Ipsi quoque ad syllabarum distinctiones et coniunctionum ac praepositionum proprietates descenderunt et invidere5 grammaticis, invidere geometris. Quicquid in illorum artibus supervacuum erat, transtulere in suam. Sic effectum est, ut diligentius loqui scirent quam vivere.
I speak of liberal studies; how much superfluous stuff, how much receding from use do philosophers have! They themselves also have descended to the distinctions of syllables and the properties of conjunctions and prepositions, and have envied the grammaticists, envied the geometers. Whatever was superfluous in the arts of those men, they transferred into their own. Thus it was brought about that they knew how to speak more carefully than how to live.
Audi, quantum mali faciat nimia subtilitas et quam infesta veritati sit. Protagoras ait de omni re in utramque partem disputari posse ex aequo et de hac ipsa, an omnis res in utramque partem disputabilis sit. Nausiphanes ait ex his, quae videntur esse, nihil magis esse quam non esse.
Hear how much evil excessive subtlety does and how hostile it is to the truth. Protagoras says that on every matter one can dispute on either side with equal force, and on this very question, whether every matter is disputable on either side. Nausiphanes says that of these things which seem to be, none is more than it is not.
Parmenides ait ex his, quae videntur, nihil esse uno excepto universo. Zenon Eleates omnia negotia de negotio deiecit:6 ait nihil esse. Circa eadem fere Pyrrhonei versantur et Megarici et Eretrici et Academici, qui novam induxerunt scientiam, nihil scire.
Parmenides says that of these things which seem, nothing exists except the one universe. Zeno of Elea threw all business out of business: he says that nothing exists. Around nearly the same things wander the Pyrrhonists and Megarians and Eretrians and Academics, who introduced a new science, to know nothing.
Haec omnia in illum supervacuum studiorum liberalium gregem coice; illi mihi non profuturam scientiam tradunt, hi spem omnis scientiae eripiunt. Satius est supervacua scire quam nihil. Illi non praeferunt lumen, per quod acies derigatur ad verum; hi oculos mihi effodiunt. Si Protagorae credo, nihil in rerum natura est nisi dubium; si Nausiphani, hoc unum certum est, nihil esse certi; si Parmenidi, nihil est praeter unum; si Zenoni, ne unum quidem.
Cast all these into that superfluous herd of liberal studies; the former hand down to me a knowledge that will not profit me, the latter snatch away the hope of all knowledge. It is better to know superfluous things than nothing. The former do not hold before me a light through which the sight may be directed to the truth; the latter gouge out my eyes. If I believe Protagoras, there is nothing in the nature of things except doubt; if Nausiphanes, this one thing is certain, that nothing is certain; if Parmenides, nothing exists except the one; if Zeno, not even the one.
Quid ergo nos sumus? Quid ista, quae nos circumstant, aiunt, sustinent? Tota rerum natura umbra est aut inanis aut fallax. Non facile dixerim, utris magis irascar, illis, qui nos nihil scire voluerunt, an illis, qui ne hoc quidem nobis reliquerunt, nihil scire.7 VALE.
What then are we? What do those things which surround us say or support? The whole nature of things is a shadow, either empty or deceptive. I could not easily say with which I am more angry: those who willed that we know nothing, or those who did not even leave this to us, that we know nothing. FAREWELL.
- 88.37Misererer
Subjunctive imperfect active, first-person singular of the verb misereor, acting as the apodosis of a past contrary-to-fact condition. In light of the fact that Didymus actually 'wrote' (scripsit) so many books, Seneca ironizes that he would pity him if he had only 'read' (legisset) them.
- 88.38longam esse vitam nega
The imperative nega ('deny') governs the accusative and infinitive construction (longam esse vitam). To 'deny that life is long' refers to the common complaint that life is short; Seneca uses this as an ironic imperative, implying that people have no right to complain of life's shortness when they waste it on trifles.
- 88.39Aristarchi ineptias, quibus aliena carmina conpunxit
The verb conpunxit ('pricked' or 'punctured') satirizes the philological practice of Aristarchus of Alexandria, who placed critical marks (such as the obelos, resembling a spit or dagger) next to lines in Homeric poems that he deemed spurious.
- 88.41non cogitare
An infinitive continuing after the impersonal construction oportet ('it is necessary'), functioning almost like a participle 'not thinking' (non cogitans) in coordination with the main subject. It highlights the self-contradiction of those who desire to know many trivial things without considering the limitations of human life.
- 88.42invidere
An historical infinitive (infinitivus historicus), used in place of an imperfect or perfect indicative to vividly describe the continuous or historical action of philosophers beginning to envy and imitate the trivial pursuits of grammarians.
- 88.44omnia negotia de negotio deiecit
A rhetorical and paradoxical play on the word negotium ('business', 'matter', or 'trouble'). Meaning 'he threw all business out of business', it describes how Zeno of Elea's radical denial of existence (that nothing exists) effectively subverted and brought to an end all intellectual activity and reality itself.
- 88.46ne hoc quidem nobis reliquerunt, nihil scire
The infinitive clause nihil scire ('to know nothing') is in apposition to the pronoun hoc ('this'). Seneca contrasts the standard skeptics (who at least claimed to know that they know nothing) with the more radical ones who did not even leave them this single certainty.