§88.10Metiri me geometres docet latifundia potius quam doceat, quomodo metiar, quantum homini satis sit.
The geometrician teaches me to measure vast estates (latifundia) rather than teach me how I should measure how much is enough for a man.
Numerare docet me et avaritiae commodat digitos potius quam doceat nihil ad rem pertinere istas conputationes, non esse feliciorem, cuius patrimonium tabularios lassat, immo quam supervacua possideat, qui infelicissimus futurus est, si quantum habeat per se conputare cogetur.
He teaches me to calculate and lends his fingers to avarice rather than teach me that those computations are of no relevance, that he is not happier whose patrimony tires out the accountants (tabularii), or rather, how superfluous are the possessions of him who is destined to be most unhappy if he is compelled to calculate by himself how much he has.
§88.11Quid mihi prodest scire agellum in partes dividere, si nescio cum fratre dividere? Quid prodest colligere subtiliter pedes iugeri et conprendere etiam si quid decempedam effugit, si tristem me facit vicinus inpotens et aliquid ex meo abradens? Docet quomodo nihil perdam ex finibus meis; at ego discere volo, quomodo totos hilaris amittam.
What does it profit me to know how to divide a small field into parts, if I do not know how to divide with a brother? What does it profit to gather minutely the feet of an acre (iugerum) and to comprehend even if anything has escaped the ten-foot rod (decempeda), if a powerless neighbor makes me sad and scrapes away something from my property? He teaches how I should lose nothing from my boundaries; but I want to learn how I may lose all of them cheerfully.
" §88.12Paterno agro et avito," inquit, "expellor.
"I am expelled," he says, "from my father's and grandfather's land." What?
"Quid? Ante avum tuum quis istum agrum tenuit? Cuius, non dico hominis, sed populi fuerit, expedire potes? Non dominus isto, sed colonus intrasti.
Before your grandfather, who held that land? Can you explain whose it was—I do not say of which man, but of which people? You entered there not as a master, but as a tenant (colonus).
Cuius colonus es? Si bene tecum agitur, heredis.
Whose tenant are you? If it goes well with you, the heir's.
Negant iurisconsulti quicquam usu capi publicum; hoc, quod tenes, quod tuum dicis, publicum est et quidem generis humani.
Jurists deny that anything public can be acquired by usucapion; this which you hold, which you call yours, is public and indeed belongs to the human race.
§88.13O egregiam artem! Scis rotunda metiri, in quadratum redigis quamcumque acceperis formam, intervalla siderum dicis, nihil est, quod in mensuram tuam non cadat.
O excellent art! You know how to measure round things, you reduce into a square whatever shape you have received, you tell the distances of the stars, there is nothing that does not fall into your measurement.
Si artifex es, metire hominis animum.
If you are an artist, measure the mind of a man.
Dic quam magnus sit, dic quam pusillus sit.
Say how great it is, say how petty it is.
Scis, quae recta sit linea; quid tibi prodest, si quid in vita rectum sit ignoras?
You know what a straight line is; what does it profit you, if you are ignorant of what is straight (rectum) in life?
§88.14Venio nunc ad illum, qui caelestium notitia gloriatur:
"
Frigida Saturni sese quo stella receptet,
Quos ignis caeli Cyllenius erret in orbes. "
Hoc scire quid proderit? Ut sollicitus sim, cum Saturnus et Mars ex contrario stabunt aut cum Mercurius vespertinum faciet occasum vidente Saturno, potius quam hoc discam, ubicumque sunt ista, propitia esse, non posse mutari?
I come now to him who boasts of his knowledge of heavenly things: "Where the cold star of Saturn withdraws itself, Into what orbits of heaven the Cyllenian fire wanders." What will it profit to know this? That I may be anxious when Saturn and Mars stand in opposition, or when Mercury makes his evening setting while Saturn is looking on, rather than that I should learn this, that wherever those things are, they are propitious, and cannot be changed?
§88.15Agit illa continuus ordo fatorum et inevitabilis cursus.
That continuous order of the fates and the inevitable course drives them.
Per statas vices remeant et effectus rerum omnium aut movent aut greatly under Tiberius.
They return through fixed successions and either move or (greatly under Tiberius.
Cf.
Cf.
Horace, Od. i. 11. 1 f. ; Juv. iii. 42 f.
Horace, Od. i. 11. 1 f.; Juv. iii. 42 f., and F.
, and F. Cumont, Astrology and Religion among the Greeks and Romans (trans. ), esp. pp. 68 ff. and 84 ff.
Cumont, Astrology and Religion among the Greeks and Romans (trans.), esp. pp. 68 ff. and 84 ff.
notant.
) denote the outcomes of all things.
Sed sive quicquid evenit faciunt, quid inmutabilis rei notitia proficiet? Sive significant, quid refert providere quod effugere non possis? Scias ista, nescias; §88.16fient.
But even if they make whatever happens, what will the knowledge of an immutable thing profit? Even if they signify it, what does it matter to foresee what you cannot escape? Whether you know those things or not, they will happen.
"
Si vero solem ad rapidum stellasque sequentes
Ordine respicies, numquam te crastina fallet
Hora nec insidiis noctis cupiere serenae. "
Satis abundeque provisum est, ut ab insidiis tutus essem.
"But if you look back at the rapid sun and the stars following In order, tomorrow's hour will never deceive you, Nor will you be caught by the snares of a serene night." It is sufficiently and abundantly provided for me to be safe from snares.
" §88.17Numquid me crastina non fallit hora? Fallit enim quod nescienti evenit.
"Does not tomorrow's hour deceive me?
"Ego quid futurum sit, nescio; quid fieri possit, scio.
For that deceives which happens to one who does not know." I do not know what will be; I know what can happen.
Ex hoc nihil desperabo, totum expecto; si quid remittitur, boni consido.
From this I will despair of nothing, I expect the whole; if anything is remitted, I count it as a gain.
Fallit me hora, si parcit, sed ne sic quidem fallit.
The hour deceives me if it spares me, but not even so does it deceive.
Nam quemadmodum scio omnia accidere posse, sic scio et non utique casura.
For just as I know that all things can happen, so I know that they will not necessarily fall out.
Utique secunda expecto, malis paratus sum.
At all events I expect favorable things, I am prepared for bad.
§88.18In illo feras me necesse est non per praescriptum euntem.
In this, you must bear with me not going by the prescribed rule.
Non enim adducor, ut in numerum liberalium artium pictores recipiam, non magis quam statuarios aut marmorarios aut ceteros luxuriae ministros.
For I am not led to receive painters into the number of liberal arts, no more than sculptors or marble-workers or other ministers of luxury.
Aeque luctatores et totam oleo ac luto constantem scientiam expello ex his studiis liberalibus; aut et unguentarios recipiam et cocos et ceteros voluptatibus nostris ingenia accommodantes sua.
Equally I expel wrestlers and the whole science consisting of oil and mud from these liberal studies; otherwise I should also receive perfumers and cooks and others accommodating their talents to our pleasures.
>Quid enim, oro te, liberale habent isti ieiuni vomitores, quorum corpora in sagina, animi in macie et veterno sunt?
For what, I ask you, is liberal about those hungry vomitters, whose bodies are in fatness, but whose minds are in wasting and lethargy?