§22.9Facile est autem, mi Lucili, occupationes evadere, si occupationum pretia contempseris.
It is easy, however, my Lucilius, to escape occupations, if you despise the rewards of occupations.
Illa sunt, quae nos morantur et detinent: "Quid ergo? Tam magnas spes relinquam? Ab ipsa messe discedam? Nudum erit latus, incomitata lectica, atrium vacuum?"
Ab his ergo inviti homines recedunt et mercedem miseriarum amant, ipsas execrantur.
These are the things which delay and detain us: "What then? Shall I leave behind such great hopes? Shall I depart from the harvest itself? Will my side be bare, my litter unattended, my atrium empty?" Therefore, people withdraw from these things unwillingly; they love the reward of their miseries, while they curse the miseries themselves.
§22.10Sic de ambitione quomodo de amica queruntur; id est, si verum adfectum eorum inspicias, non oderunt, sed litigant.
Thus they complain about ambition just as they do about a mistress; that is, if you inspect their true affection, they do not hate, but are quarreling.
Excute istos, qui, quae cupiere, deplorant et de earum rerum locuntur fuga, quibus carere non possunt; videbis voluntariam esse illis in eo moram, quod aegre ferre ipsos et misere locuntur.
Examine those who deplore what they have desired, and speak of flight from those things which they cannot do without; you will see that their delay is voluntary in that which they speak of bearing with reluctance and misery.
§22.11Ita est, Lucili; paucos servitus, plures servitutem tenent.
So it is, Lucilius; slavery holds few, but more hold slavery.
Sed si deponere illam in animo est et libertas bona fide placuit, in hoc autem unum advocationem petis, ut sine perpetua sollicitudine id tibi facere contingat, quidni tota te cohors Stoicorum probatura sit? Omnes Zenones et Chrysippi moderata, honesta, tua suadebunt.
But if you have it in mind to lay it down, and freedom has pleased you in good faith, and you seek help only in this one thing, that it may be your lot to do this without perpetual anxiety, why should not the whole cohort of Stoics approve of you? All the Zenon-like and Chrysippus-like figures will advise things that are moderate, honorable, and your own.
§22.12Sed si propter hoc tergiversaris, ut circumspicias, quantum feras tecum et quam magna pecunia instruas otium, numquam exitum invenies.
But if you vacillate for this reason, to look around to see how much you may carry with you, and with how large a sum of money you may equip your leisure, you will never find an exit.
Nemo cum sarcinis enatat.
No one swims out with baggage.
Emerge ad meliorem vitam propitiis dis, sed non sic, quomodo istis propitii sunt, quibus bono ac benigno vultu mala magnifica tribuerunt, ad hoc unum excusati, quod ista, quae urunt, quae excruciant, optantibus data sunt.
Struggle up to a better life with the gods' favor, but not in the way they are favorable to those upon whom, with a good and kind countenance, they have bestowed magnificent evils, excused only in this one thing, that those things which burn and torture were given to them because they wished for them.
§22.13Iam inprimebam epistulae signum; resolvenda est, ut cum sollemni ad te munusculo veniat et aliquam magnificam vocem ferat secum, et occurrit mihi ecce nescio utrum verior an eloquentior.
I was already imprinting the seal on the letter; it must be unsealed, so that it may come to you with the customary little gift and carry some magnificent saying with it, and lo, there occurred to me a saying, I know not whether truer or more eloquent.
"Cuius?" inquis; Epicuri, adhuc enim alienas sarcinas adsero; "Nemo non ita exit e vita, tamquam modo intraverit. " §22.14Quemcumque vis occupa, adulescentem senem medium; invenies aeque timidum mortis, aeque inscium vitae.
"Whose?" you ask; Epicurus's, for I am still claiming others' baggage as my own: "No one departs from life otherwise than as if he had just entered it." Take anyone you wish, young, old, or middle-aged; you will find them equally fearful of death, equally ignorant of life.
Nemo quicquam habet facti, in futurum enim nostra distulimus.
No one has anything completed, for we have postponed our affairs into the future.
Nihil me magis in ista voce delectat quam quod exprobratur senibus infantia. "
Nothing delights me more in that saying than that infancy is reproached in old men.
§22.15Nemo," inquit, "aliter quam qui modo natus est exit e vita. "Falsum est; peiores morimur quam nascimur.
"No one," he says, "departs from life otherwise than one who was just born." That is false; we die worse than we are born.
Nostrum istud, non naturae vitium est.
That is our fault, not nature's.
Illa nobiscum queri debet et dicere: "Quid hoc est? Sine cupiditatibus vos genui, sine timoribus, sine superstitione, sine perfidia ceterisque pestibus;
She ought to complain to us and say: "What is this?
quales intrastis exite. " §22.16Percepit sapientiam, si quis tam securus morietur quam nascitur;
I bore you without desires, without fears, without superstition, without perfidy, and without other plagues; depart just as you entered." He has attained wisdom, if anyone dies as free from care as he is born.
nunc vero trepidamus, cum periculum accessit, non animus nobis, non color constat; lacrimae nihil profuturae cadunt.
But as it is, we tremble when danger approaches; our spirit is not steady, nor is our color; tears fall that will be of no use.
Quid est turpius quam in ipso limine securitatis esse sollicitum?
What is more shameful than to be anxious on the very threshold of security?
§22.17Causa autem haec est, quod inanes omnium bonorum sumus, vitae iactura laboramus.
But the cause is this: that we are empty of all good things, and we suffer from the loss of life.
Non enim apud nos pars eius ulla subsedit; transmissa est et effluxit.
For no part of it has remained with us; it has been passed through and has flowed away.
Nemo quam bene vivat, sed quam diu, curat, cum omnibus possit contingere, ut bene vivant, ut diu, nulli.
No one cares how well he lives, but how long, although it can happen to everyone to live well, but to live long, to no one.
VALE.
FAREWELL.