§60.1Queror, litigo, irascor.
I complain, I dispute, I am angry.
Etiamnunc optas, quod tibi optavit nutrix tua aut paedagogus aut mater? Nondum intellegis, quantum mali optaverint? O quam inimica nobis sunt vota nostrorum! Eo quidem inimiciora quo cessere felicius.
Even now do you wish for that which your nurse, or your tutor, or your mother wished for you? Do you not yet understand how much of evil they wished for? Oh, how hostile to us are the prayers of our loved ones! Indeed, they are the more harmful, the more successfully they have turned out.
Iam non admiror, si omnia nos a prima pueritia mala secuntur; inter execrationes parentum crevimus.
Now I do not wonder if all evils follow us from early childhood; we have grown up among the curses of our parents.
Exaudiant di nostram quoque pro nobis vocem gratuitam.
May the gods hear our own unbought voice also on our behalf.
§60.2Quousque poscemus aliquid deos ita quasi nondum ipsi alere nos possimus? Quamdiu sationibus inplebimus magnarum urbium campos? Quamdiu nobis populus metet? Quamdiu unius mensae instrumentum multa navigia et quidem non ex uno mari subvehent? Taurus paucissimorum iugerum pascuo impletur; una silva elephantis pluribus sufficit; homo et terra et mari pascitur.
How long shall we ask something of the gods just as if we could not yet feed ourselves? How long shall we fill the fields of great cities with crops? How long will a whole people reap for us? How long will many ships, and indeed not from a single sea, bring the equipment of a single table? A bull is satisfied with the pasture of a very few acres; a single forest suffices for several elephants; man is fed both by land and by sea.
§60.3Quid ergo? Tam insatiabilem nobis natura alvum dedit, cum tam modica corpora dedisset, ut vastissimorum edacissimorumque animalium aviditatem vinceremus? Minime.
What then? Did nature give us so insatiable a belly, when she had given us such moderate bodies, that we should surpass the greed of the largest and most voracious animals? Not at all.
Quantulum est enim, quod naturae datur? Parvo illa dimittitur.
For how very little it is that is given to nature! She is dismissed with a small amount.
Non fames nobis ventris nostri magno constat, sed ambitio.
It is not the hunger of our belly that costs us dear, but our ambition.
§60.4Hos itaque, ut ait Sallustius, "ventri oboedientes" animalium loco numeremus, non hominum, quosdam vero ne animalium quidem, sed mortuorum.
Therefore let us reckon these, who, as Sallustius says, are "obedient to the belly," in the place of animals, not of men, and some indeed not even in the place of animals, but of the dead.
Vivit is, qui multis usui est, vivit is, qui se utitur; qui vero latitant et torpent, sic in domo sunt, quomodo in conditivo.
He lives who is of use to many, he lives who makes use of himself; but those who lurk and are sluggish are in their house just as if in a tomb.
Horum licet in limine ipso nomen marmori inscribas, mortem suam antecesserunt.
You may write the name of these on the marble at their very threshold; they have anticipated their own death.
VALE.
FAREWELL.