§44.1Iterum tu mihi te pusillum facis et dicis malignius tecum egisse naturam prius, deinde fortunam, cum possis eximere te vulgo et ad felicitatem hominum maximam emergere.
Once again you make yourself small to me and say that nature first, and then fortune, has dealt rather maliciously with you, although you can rescue yourself from the crowd and emerge to the greatest happiness of men.
Si quid est aliud in philosophia boni, hoc est, quod stemma non inspicit.
If there is any other good in philosophy, it is this: that it does not inspect family trees.
Omnes, si ad originem primam revocantur, a dis sunt.
All, if they are recalled to their first origin, are from the gods.
§44.2Eques Romanus es, et ad hunc ordinem tua te perduxit industria; at mehercules multis quattuordecim clausa sunt; non omnes curia admittit; castra quoque, quos ad laborem et periculum recipiant, fastidiose legunt.
You are a Roman knight, and your industry has led you to this rank; but by Hercules, the fourteen rows are closed to many; the senate does not admit everyone; the camp also fastidiously selects those whom they may receive for labor and danger.
Bona mens omnibus patet, omnes ad hoc sumus nobiles.
A good mind is open to all, in this we are all noble.
Nec reicit quemquam philosophia nec eligit; omnibus lucet.
Philosophy neither rejects anyone nor selects anyone; it shines for all.
§44.3Patricius Socrates non fuit.
Socrates was not a patrician.
Cleanthes aquam traxit et rigando horto locavit manus.
Cleanthes drew water and hired out his hands for watering a garden.
Platonem non accepit nobilem philosophia, sed fecit.
Philosophy did not receive Plato as noble, but made him so.
Quid est quare desperes his te posse fieri parem? Omnes hi maiores tui sunt, si te illis geris dignum; geres autem, si hoc protinus tibi ipse persuaseris, a nullo te nobilitate superari.
What reason is there why you should despair of being able to become equal to these? All these are your ancestors, if you conduct yourself worthily of them; and you will so conduct yourself, if you convince yourself of this from the very start, that you are surpassed in nobility by no one.
§44.4Omnibus nobis totidem ante nos sunt; nullius non origo ultra memoriam iacet.
All of us have just as many ancestors before us; there is no one whose origin does not lie beyond memory.
Platon ait neminem regem non ex servis esse oriundum,neminem servum non ex regibus.
Plato says that there is no king who did not spring from slaves, and no slave who did not spring from kings.
Omnia ista longa varietas miscuit et sursum deorsum fortuna versavit.
A long variety of things has mixed all those together, and fortune has turned them upside down.
§44.5Quis est generosus? Ad virtutem bene a natura conpositus.
Who is noble? One who is well-disposed by nature toward virtue.
Hoc unum intuendum est; alioquin si ad vetera revocas, nemo non inde est, ante quod nihil est.
This one thing must be looked at; otherwise, if you recall to ancient times, there is no one who does not come from that point before which there is nothing.
A primo mundi ortu usque in hoc tempus perduxit nos ex splendidis sordidisque alternata series.
From the first origin of the world down to this time, an alternating series of splendid and sordid things has led us.
Non facit nobilem atrium plenum fumosis imaginibus.
An atrium full of smoky portraits does not make a man noble.
Nemo in nostram gloriam vixit nec quod ante nos fuit, nostrum est; animus facit nobilem, cui ex quacumque condicione supra fortunam licet surgere.
No one has lived for our glory, nor is what was before us ours; the mind makes a man noble, which is permitted to rise above fortune from any condition whatsoever.
§44.6Puta itaque te non equitem Romanum esse, sed libertinum; potes hoc consequi, ut solus sis liber inter ingenuos.
Therefore, assume that you are not a Roman knight, but a freedman; you can achieve this, that you alone are free among the free-born.
"Quomodo?" inquis.
"How?" you ask.
Si mala bonaque non populo auctore distinxeris.
If you do not distinguish good and bad things with the public as your authority.
Intuendum est non unde veniant, sed quo eant.
We must look not at where they come from, but where they are going.
Si quid est, quod vitam beatam potest facere, id bonum est suo iure.
If there is anything that can make life happy, it is good in its own right.
§44.7Depravari enim in malum non potest.
For it cannot be depraved into evil.
Quid est ergo, in quo erratur, cum omnes beatam vitam optent? Quod instrumenta eius pro ipsa habent et illam, dum petunt, fugiunt.
What is it, then, in which people err, since everyone desires a happy life? It is that they mistake its instruments for itself, and while they seek it, they flee from it.
Nam cum summa vitae beatae sit solida securitas et eius inconcussa fiducia, sollicitudinis colligunt causas et per insidiosum iter vitae non tantum ferunt sarcinas, sed trahunt; ita longius ab effectu eius, quod petunt, semper abscedunt et quo plus operae inpenderunt, hoc se magis impediunt et feruntur retro.
For since the sum of a happy life is solid peace of mind and its unshakable confidence, they gather causes of anxiety, and along the treacherous path of life they not only carry burdens but drag them; thus they always depart further from the fulfillment of what they seek, and the more effort they spend, the more they hinder themselves and are carried backward.
Quod evenit in labyrintho properantibus; ipsa illos velocitas inplicat.
This is what happens to those who hurry in a labyrinth; their very speed entangles them.
VALE.
FAREWELL.