§101.9Quo modo effugiemus hanc volutationem? Uno, si vita nostra non prominebit, si in se colligitur.
How shall we escape this tossing? In one way: if our life does not project forward, if it is gathered into itself.
Ille enim ex futuro suspenditur, cui inritum est praesens.
For he is suspended from the future, to whom the present is void.
Ubi vero, quidquid mihi debui, redditum est, ubi stabilita mens scit nihil interesse inter diem et saeculum, quicquid deinceps dierum rerumque venturum est, ex alto prospicit et cum multo risu seriem temporum cogitat.
But when whatever I owed to myself has been paid back, when the stabilized mind knows that there is no difference between a day and an age, it looks down from on high upon whatever of days and things is to come next, and with much laughter contemplates the succession of times.
Quid enim varietas mobilitasque casuum perturbabit, si certus sis adversus incerta?
For what will the variety and changeability of chances disturb, if you are certain against uncertain things?
§101.10Ideo propera, Lucili mi, vivere et singulos dies singulas vitas puta.
Therefore hasten, my Lucilius, to live, and think of individual days as individual lives.
Qui hoc modo se aptavit, cui vita sua cotidie fuit tota, securus est; in spem viventibus proximum quodque tempus elabitur subitque aviditas et miserrimus ac miserrima omnia efficiens metus mortis.
He who has fitted himself in this way, to whom his own life daily was complete, is secure; for those living in hope, each nearest block of time slips away and there steals in greed and the fear of death, which is most wretched and makes all things most wretched.
Inde illud Maecenatis turpissimum votum, quo et debilitatem non recusat et deformitatem et novissime acutam crucem, dummodo inter haec mala spiritus prorogetur: §101.11"
Debilem facito manu, debilem pede coxo,
Tuber adstrue gibberum, lubricos quate dentes; Vita dum superest, benest; hanc mihi, vel acuta
Si sedeam cruce, sustine. "
From this comes that most disgraceful vow of Maecenas, in which he refuses neither weakness nor deformity nor at last the sharp cross, provided that among these evils his breath is prolonged: "Make me weak in hand, weak with a lame foot, Add a hunchback lump, shake my loose teeth; As long as life remains, it is well; this for me, even if I should sit on a sharp cross, sustain.
§101.12Quod miserrimum erat, si incidisset, optatur et tamquam vita petitur supplici mora.
"That which would be most wretched, if it had happened, is wished for, and as if it were life, a delay of punishment is sought.
Contemptissimum putarem, si vivere vellet usque ad crucem::' Tu vero "inquit, "me debilites licet, dum spiritus in corpore fracto et inutili maneat.
I should think him most contemptible, if he wished to live even to the cross: "You indeed," he says, "may weaken me, as long as my breath remains in a broken and useless body.
Depraves licet, dum monstroso et distorto temporis aliquid accedat.
You may deform me, as long as some time is added to my monstrous and distorted body.
Suffigas Meet et acutam sessuro crucem subdas.
You may crucify me, and place a sharp cross beneath me who am about to sit." Is it worth so much to press one's own wound and to hang stretched on a gibbet, as long as it postpones that which is best among evils, the end of punishment?
"Est tanti vulnus suum premere et patibulo pendere districtum, dum differat id, quod est in malis optimum, supplicii finem? Est tanti habere animam, ut agam?
Is it worth so much to have life, just to draw my dying breath?
§101.13Quid huic optes nisi deos faciles? Quid sibi vult ista carminis effeminati turpitudo? Quid timoris dementissimi pactio? Quid tam foeda vitae mendicatio? Huic putes umquam recitasse Vergilium:
"
Usque adeone mori miserum est?
"
Optat ultima malorum, et quae pati gravissimum est extendi ac sustineri cupit;
What would you pray for this man except that the gods be favorable to him? What does that disgrace of an effeminate poem mean? What does that bargain of a most mad fear mean? What is that so foul a begging for life? Would you think that Vergil ever recited to this man: "Is it so very wretched to die? "He wishes for the extreme of evils, and what is most grievous to suffer, he desires to be extended and sustained; for what reward?
qua mercede? Scilicet vitae longioris.
Doubtless of a longer life.
Quod autem vivere est diu mori?
But what kind of living is it to die for a long time?
§101.14Invenitur aliquis, qui velit inter supplicia tabescere et perire membratim et totiens per stilicidia emittere animam quam semel exhalare? Invenitur, qui velit adactus ad illud infelix lignum, iam debilis, iam pravus et in foedum scapularum ac pectoris tuber elisus, cui multae moriendi causae etiam citra crucem fuerant, trahere animam tot tormenta tracturam?
Nega nunc magnum beneficium esse naturae, quod necesse est mori.
Is anyone found who wishes to waste away in the midst of punishments, and to perish limb by limb, and to let out his soul by drops so many times rather than to exhale it once? Is anyone found who wishes, nailed to that infamous wood, already weak, already deformed, and distorted into a foul lump on shoulders and chest, for whom there had been many reasons for dying even without the cross, to draw a breath that is about to drag so many torments? Deny now that it is a great blessing of nature that it is necessary to die.
Multi peiora adhuc pacisci parati sunt: etiam amicum prodere, ut diutius vivant, et liberos ad stuprum manu sua tradere, ut contingat lucem videre tot consciam scelerum, Excutienda vitae cupido est discendumque nihil interesse, quando patiaris, quod quandoque patiendum est.
Many are ready to bargain for still worse things: even to betray a friend, so that they may live longer, and to hand over their children to lust with their own hand, so that they may happen to see the light that is conscious of so many crimes. The desire for life must be shaken off, and we must learn that it makes no difference when you suffer what must be suffered at some time.
§101.15Quam bene vivas refert, non quam diu; saepe autem in hoc est bene, ne diu.
How well you live matters, not how long; and often there is good in this, not to live long.
VALE.
FAREWELL.