§110.1Ex Nomentano meo te saluto et iubeo habere mentem bonam, hoc est propitios deos omnis, quos habet placatos et faventes, quisquis sibi se propitiavit.
I greet you from my country-seat at Nomentum, and I bid you have a sound mind—that is, to have all the gods propitious, whom anyone has pacated and favorable who has made himself propitious to himself.
Sepone in praesentia, quae quibusdam placent, unicuique nostrum paedagogum dari deum, non quidem ordinarium, sed hunc inferioris notae ex eorum numero, quos Ovidius ait "de plebe deos. "Ita tamen hoc seponas volo, ut memineris maiores nostros, qui crediderunt, Stoicos fuisse; singulis enim et §110.2Genium et Iunonem dederunt.
Put aside for the present the opinion that pleases certain people, namely, that to each of us a god is given as a guardian, not indeed of the regular rank, but one of lower mark from the number of those whom Ovid calls 'plebeian gods.' Yet I wish you to put this aside in such a way that you remember our ancestors, who believed this, were Stoics; for they assigned to individuals both a Genius and a Juno.
Postea videbimus, an tantum dis vacet, ut privatorum negotia procurent; interim illud scito, sive adsignati sumus, sive neglecti et fortunae dati, nulli te posse inprecari quicquam gravius, quam si inprecatus fueris, ut se habeat iratum.
We shall see later whether the gods have so much leisure that they take care of the affairs of private individuals; in the meantime, know this, whether we have been assigned guardians or neglected and given over to fortune, that you can pray for nothing more grievous upon anyone than if you pray that he may have himself angry.
Sed non est quare cuiquam, quem poena putaveris dignum, optes, ut infestos deos habeat; habet, inquam, etiam si videtur eorum favore produci.
But there is no reason why you should wish for anyone whom you think worthy of punishment to have the gods hostile to him; he has them hostile, I say, even if he seems to be advanced by their favor.
§110.3Adhibe diligentiam tuam et intuere, quid sint res nostrae, non quid vocentur; et scies plura mala contingere nobis quam accidere.
Apply your diligence and look into what our affairs are, not what they are called; and you will know that more evils befall us by our own doing than happen to us by chance.
Quotiens enim felicitatis et causa et initium fuit, quod calamitas vocabatur? Quotiens magna gratulatione excepta res gradum sibi struxit in praeceps et aliquem iam eminentem adlevavit etiamnunc, tamquam adhuc ibi staret, unde tuto cadunt?
For how often has that which was called a calamity been both the cause and the beginning of happiness? How often has a thing received with great congratulation built a step for itself to a precipice, and raised someone who was already eminent even higher, as if he still stood there from where men fall safely?
§110.4Sed ipsum illud cadere non habet in se mali quidquam, si exitum spectes, ultra quem natura neminem deiecit.
But that falling itself has nothing of evil in it, if you look to the end, beyond which nature has cast no one down.
Prope est rerum omnium terminus, prope est, inquam, et illud, unde felix eicitur, et illud, unde infelix emittitur; nos utraque extendimus et longa spe ac metu facimus.
Near is the boundary of all things; near, I say, is both that from which the happy man is cast out, and that from which the unhappy man is released; we extend both of them and make them long by hope and fear.
Sed si sapis, omnia humana condicione metire; simul et quod gaudes et quod times, contrahe.
But if you are wise, measure all things by the human condition; at the same time, contract both what you rejoice in and what you fear.
Est autem tanti nihil diu gaudere, ne quid diu timeas.
Moreover, it is worth your while to rejoice in nothing for a long time, so that you may fear nothing for a long time.
§110.5Sed quare istuc malum adstringo? Non est quod quicquam timendum putes.
But why do I limit that evil? There is no reason why you should think anything is to be feared.
Vana sunt ista, quae nos movent, quae attonitos habent.
Vain are those things which move us, which keep us astonished.
Nemo nostrum quid veri esset, excussit, sed metum alter alteri tradidit; nemo ausus est ad id, quo perturbabatur, accedere et naturam ac bonum timoris sui nosse.
None of us has examined what was of truth, but one has handed down fear to another; no one has dared to approach that by which he was disturbed, and to know the nature and the value of his fear.
Itaque res falsa et inanis habet adhuc fidem, quia non coarguitur.
Therefore a false and empty thing still has credit, because it is not refuted.
§110.6Tanti putemus oculos intendere; iam apparebit, quam brevia, quam incerta, quam tuta timeantur.
Let us think it worth our while to direct our eyes; immediately it will appear how brief, how uncertain, how safe are the things that are feared.
Talis est animorum nostrorum confusio, qualis Lucretio visa est:
"
Nam veluti pueri trepidant atque omnia caecis
In tenebris metuunt, ita nos in luce timemus.
Such is the confusion of our minds, as it seemed to Lucretius: "For just as children tremble and fear everything in blind darkness, so we fear in the light.
"
Quid ergo? Non omni puero stultiores sumus qui in luce timemus?
"What then? Are we not more foolish than any child, we who fear in the light?
§110.7Sed falsum est, Lucreti, non timemus in luce; omnia nobis fecimus tenebras.
But it is false, Lucretius; we do not fear in the light; we have made everything darkness for ourselves.
Nihil videmus, nec quid noceat nec quid expediat; tota vita incursitamus nec ob hoc resistimus aut circumspectius pedem ponimus.
We see nothing, neither what harms nor what is expedient; we stumble along through our whole life, and we do not halt because of this or place our foot more circumspectly.
vides autem, quam sit furiosa res in tenebris impetus.
And you see how mad a thing is a rush in the dark.
At mehercules id agimus, ut longius revocandi simus, et cum ignoremus, quo feramur, velociter tamen illo, quo intendimus, perseveramus.
But, by Hercules, we act so that we must be recalled from further off; and though we are ignorant of where we are being carried, we nevertheless persist swiftly toward that place where we are aiming.
§110.8Sed lucescere, si velimus, potest.
But it can grow light, if we wish.
Uno autem modo potest, si quis hanc humanorum divinorumque notitiam scientia acceperit, si illa se non perfuderit, sed infecerit, si eadem, quamvis sciat, retractaverit et ad se saepe rettulerit, si quaesierit, quae sint bona, quae mala, quibus hoc falso sit nomen adscriptum, si quaesierit de honestis et turpibus, de providentia.
And it can in only one way: if someone receives this knowledge of human and divine things through systematic knowledge, if he has not merely sprinkled himself with it, but dyed himself in it; if, although he knows them, he has reconsidered the same things and often applied them to himself; if he has searched what things are good, what are evil, to which this name has been falsely attached; if he has inquired about honorable and shameful things, about providence.
§110.9Nec intra haec humani ingenii sagacitas sistitur; prospicere et ultra mundum libet, quo feratur, unde surrexerit, in quem exitum tanta rerum velocitas properet.
Nor is the sagacity of the human mind stopped within these limits; it pleases it to look forward even beyond the universe, where it is carried, from where it arose, to what end such great velocity of things hastens.
Ab hac divina contemplatione abductum animum in sordida et humilia pertraximus, ut avaritiae serviret, ut relicto mundo terminisque eius et dominis cuncta versantibus terram rimaretur et quaereret, quid ex illa mali effoderet, non contentus oblatis.
Having drawn our mind away from this divine contemplation, we have dragged it down into sordid and humble things, so that it might serve avarice, so that, having abandoned the universe and its boundaries and the rulers who turn all things, it might scratch the earth and seek what evil it might dig out of it, not content with what is offered.
§110.10Quidquid nobis bono futurum erat, deus et parens noster in proximo posuit; non expectavit inquisitionem nostram et ultro dedit.
Whatever was going to be for our good, God and our parent placed close at hand; he did not wait for our search and gave it of his own accord.
Nocitura altissime pressit.
The things that would harm us, he pressed down very deep.
Nihil nisi de nobis queri possumus; ea, quibus periremus, nolente rerum natura et abscondente protulimus.
We can complain of nothing except ourselves; those things by which we would perish, we have brought forth against the will of nature and while she was hiding them.
Addiximus animum voluptati, cui indulgere initium omnium malorum est, tradidimus ambitioni et famae, ceteris aeque vanis et inanibus.
We have enslaved our mind to pleasure, to indulge in which is the beginning of all evils; we have handed it over to ambition and fame, and to other things equally vain and empty.