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by Seneca


  LETTER 57

  [An unpleasant journey through a tunnel and the thoughts it prompts]

  1 When I was due to return to Naples from Baiae I easily persuaded

  myself that the weather was too stormy to try a second sea voyage.1

  And yet the whole of my route was so muddy that anyone

  would think I had sailed nevertheless. That day I had to go

  through everything that athletes endure: after our anointment

  with mud we then faced a sand-dusting in the Naples tunnel.

  2 Nothing is longer than that prison, nothing more gloomy than the

  torches there, which intensify the darkness rather than enabling us

  to see through it. In any case, even if the place had any light, the

  dust would conceal it. Dust is a serious nuisance even in the open:

  you can imagine what it’s like in that place, where it just eddies

  around, and since there’s no ventilation it settles on those who

  have stirred it up. We suffered simultaneously from two normally

  opposing inconveniences: on the same journey and the same day

  we had to cope with both mud and dust.

  3 And yet that darkness gave me something to think about: I felt

  a sort of mental shock and confusion, though without fear, caused

  by the novelty and also the unpleasantness of an unusual experience.

  I’m not now talking to you about myself – I’m far from

  being even a passable man, let alone a perfect one – but about the

  sort of man over whom Fortune has lost her rights: even his mind

  4 will suffer a blow and his colour change. For there are some

  things, dear Lucilius, which no courage can escape – nature warns

  that courage of its own mortality. And so this man will contort

  his features at sad news, and shudder at sudden occurrences, and

  turn giddy if he stands on the edge of a great height and looks

  5 down. This isn’t fear but a natural reaction which cannot be

  conquered by reason. And so some brave men who are more than

  willing to shed their own blood cannot bear to see someone else’s.

  Some people collapse and faint at the sight and handling of a fresh

  wound, others at an old and festering one. Some receive a sword

  6 thrust more easily than they see one given. Well, as I was saying,

  my feeling was not really a serious disturbance but a sort of

  confusion, and at the first glimpse of the return of daylight my

  natural cheerfulness returned without thought or volition.

  Then I began to say to myself how foolishly we fear some

  things more or less although the same end awaits us all. For what

  difference does it make whether a watchtower or a mountain

  collapses on somebody? None, of course. Yet you will find people

  who are more afraid of the mountain falling, though both are

  equally fatal. So true is it that fear contemplates not results but

  what brings them about.

  7 Do you imagine I am now talking about the Stoics, who

  believe that the soul of a man crushed by a great weight cannot

  survive and is straightway broken up because there was not a clear

  outlet for it? Not in the least: those who say this seem to me

  8 wrong. Just as a flame cannot be crushed (for it escapes around

  whatever is pressing it), nor can air be damaged or even divided

  by hitting and striking it, but flows around that which it gives

  way to; so the soul, which is composed of the most rarefied

  material, cannot be trapped or crushed within the body, but,

  thanks to its fine texture, it forces its way right through any

  overpowering weight. Just as however widely a thunderbolt’s

  force and flash is diffused it returns through a tiny opening, so the

  soul, which is even more rarefied than fire, can escape through

  9 any part of the body. And so we must ask this question: can it be

  immortal? Well, be sure of this: if it survives the body, it can in

  no way be destroyed, since no sort of immortality is qualified and

  nothing can damage what is eternal.

  LETTER 79

  [Seneca asks Lucilius for details about Charybdis, and encourages him to write a poetical account of Mount Etna, as others have done. Literary emulation is possible and desirable, but wisdom and virtue cannot involve rivalry]

  1 I am looking forward to your letter in which you will tell me

  what you discovered in your trip around the whole of Sicily, with

  full and reliable details about Charybdis in particular. For I am

  well aware that Scylla is a rock and not, in fact, dangerous to

  sailors, but I want you to tell me whether Charybdis matches up

  to the tales about it. Also, if you happen to notice (which is well

  worth noticing), do inform me whether it is lashed into whirlpools

  by only one wind, or any storm at all stirs up that sea, and

  whether it is true that anything caught up by that whirling eddy

  is dragged under water for many miles and does not surface till it

  2 reaches the shore of Tauromenium.1 If you write and tell me these details I’ll venture to commission you to climb Etna too for

  my sake. Some people judge that it is being worn away and is

  gradually sinking from the fact that sailors used to be able to see

  it from further away. This might happen not because the mountain

  is getting lower, but because its fire has declined and is ejected

  with less force and volume, causing the smoke too to appear more

  sluggishly during the day. Neither possibility can be ruled out,

  that the mountain is daily diminished by being consumed, or that

  it remains unchanged because the fire is not actually devouring

  it, but, starting in some subterranean hollow, blazes away there,

  feeding on other material and using the mountain itself not as

  3 food but as a way out. There is a well-known region of Lycia

  (the local name is Hephaestion), where the ground is perforated

  in several places, and a harmless fire plays around the area without

  doing the least damage to the local plant life. In fact, the region

  is lush and rich in vegetation, as the flames do not scorch anything,

  but simply cause a glow without any strength in their heat.

  4 But let us defer these questions for consideration when you’ve

  written to tell me how far away from the crater are the snows,

  which do not melt even in summer, so safe are they from the

  nearby fire. However, there is no question of your doing this

  investigation as a favour to me: you were going to indulge your

  5 obsession anyway, even if nobody asked you to. What could I

  give you not to describe Etna in your poem and handle this theme

  so well-worn by every poet? Ovid was in no way prevented from

  treating it by the fact that Virgil had previously dealt with it fully;

  and neither of them deterred Cornelius Severus from doing the

  same. Besides, this subject is a rich field for all writers, and those

  who have gone before do not seem to me to have pre-empted

  what can be said about it, but rather to have shown the way.

  6 There is a great difference between taking on a topic which is

  exhausted and one which is well prepared for you. The latter is

  always expanding, and previous treatments of it do not preclude

  later ones. What is more, the latest writer is in the best position:

  he
finds words ready to hand which he can rearrange to produce

  a new effect. And since they are public property he cannot be

  7 said to be doing violence to the words of others. If I know you,

  Etna is making your mouth water: you’ve been longing to tackle

  some lofty theme in a way to rival your predecessors. Your modesty

  does not allow you to hope for more, and it is so excessive

  that you actually seem to me to curtail your mental powers if

  there’s any risk of your outdoing another writer: so greatly do

  8 you respect your predecessors. Wisdom has this among its other advantages, that no one can

  be outdone by another except in the act of rising to achieve it.

  When you have come to the top everything is equal: they have

  come to a halt and there is no room for further development.

  Can the sun add to its bulk or the moon exceed its normal fulness?

  The seas do not increase; the world preserves the same physical

  9 form and limits. Things which have arrived at their prescribed

  bulk cannot extend themselves: all men who have achieved wisdom

  are equal and on a level. Each individual among them will

  have his own natural gifts: one will be more genial than the others,

  another more quick-witted, another swifter in repartee,

  another more eloquent. But the quality we are concerned with,

  10 the one that brings them bliss, is equal in all of them. I don’t

  know whether this Etna of yours can collapse and fall on itself,

  and whether the unrelenting force of its fires is demolishing that

  lofty peak which is visible over vast tracts of ocean. But I do

  know that no fire or collapse will bring down virtue: this is one

  grandeur that cannot be humbled. It cannot be raised or lowered

  as its stature is fixed, like that of the heavenly bodies: let us try to

  11 raise ourselves to this height. By now much of the task has been

  accomplished – no, if I am to be honest with you, not much of

  it. For goodness does not consist in being better than the worst.

  Who would boast about his eyesight if he had only a hazy view

  of daylight? If the sun shines on a man through the mist, he can

  be glad that for a while he has escaped the darkness, but he is not

  12 yet enjoying the blessing of light. Our mind will only have

  grounds for self-congratulation when it has emerged from this

  darkness which enfolds it and sees clearly with no restricted vision,

  when it absorbs the full light of day and is restored to the heavens

  where it belongs, recovering the place allotted to it at birth. Its

  own origins summon it upwards, and it will get there even before

  its bodily prison dissolves, when it has shaken off its faults and

  being pure and unburdened it darts upwards to divine reflections.

  13 This activity, this whole-hearted journey of ours, is a joy, dear

  Lucilius, even if few or none know about it. Fame is the shadow

  of virtue and attends virtue even against its will. But just as you’ll

  see a shadow sometimes preceding, sometimes following behind,

  so fame sometimes goes ahead of us, visible to all, and sometimes

  follows us, and is all the greater for coming late when envy has

  14 departed. What a long time did Democritus seem to be mad!

  Socrates scarcely achieved fame in the end. What a long time was

  Cato ignored by his country! It disdained him and did not realize

  its mistake until it lost him. Rutilius’ innocence and virtue would

  have escaped notice had he not been wronged; but when violated

  they shone forth in glory. Did he not give thanks to his fortune

  and welcome his exile with open arms? I am talking about those

  whom fortune glorified while she afflicted them. But how many

  are there whose enlightened conduct achieved celebrity only after

  their death, whose fame did not attend their lives but restored

  15 them later to renown. Look at how greatly Epicurus is admired

  not only by the learned but by crowds of unphilosophical men

  everywhere: yet he was unknown even in Athens, near which he

  had ‘lived unnoticed’.2 That was why many years after his pupil

  Metrodorus’ death he wrote a letter in which, having extolled

  their friendship with grateful reminiscences, he added at the end

  that he and Metrodorus had enjoyed so many blessings that they

  had suffered no hurt from the fact that Greece with all its fair

  fame had not only not known them, but had scarcely heard of

  16 them. Well, did not men discover him after he died, and did he

  not then acquire a shining reputation? Metrodorus too admits in

  a letter that he and Epicurus had scarcely become known, but

  that after his and Epicurus’ death anyone who wanted to follow

  17 in their footsteps would find a great and ready-made name. No

  virtue remains concealed, and to have been concealed does it no

  damage, for time will bring it to light though it was suppressed in

  obscurity by the spite of its own contemporaries. The man who

  has in mind only his own generation is born for few people.

  Thousands of years and many generations will follow: these are

  what you must consider. Even if malice produces silence about

  you during the lifetime of your contemporaries, others will come

  who will judge you without animosity and without favour. Whatever

  reward virtue enjoys from fame is not lost. Certainly we will

  not be affected by what later generations say about us, but even

  though we shall feel nothing they will cherish our memory with

  18 naffection. Virtue rewards everyone both in his life and after his

  death, provided he has sincerely cultivated it, and provided he has

  not tricked himself out with adornments, but has remained the

  same individual, whether warned in advance of your seeing him

  or caught unaware. Pretence achieves nothing. A mask that is

  easily slipped on doesn’t fool many people: truth is the same

  through and through. Things that deceive have no substance.

  Falsehood is a flimsy thing, and if you look hard, you can see

  through it.

  LETTER 110

  [A strong recommendation for a sane outlook on life: philosophy can help us to avoid groundless fears and reduce our needs to a minimum]

  1 I greet you from my place at Nomentum1 and wish you health

  of mind, that is, the favour of all the gods – and anyone who has

  won his own favour has the gods at peace and well-disposed

  towards him. Put aside for the time being the belief of certain

  people that each of us has a god appointed to him as a guardian –

  not, indeed, a god from the regular ranks, but one of lesser quality

  belonging to the group which Ovid calls ‘lower-class gods’.However,

  while you are putting aside this belief I want you to remember

  that our ancestors who entertained it were essentially Stoics;

  for they attributed to every single man or woman a Genius or

  2 a Juno.2 We shall see presently whether the gods have enough

  time to look after the affairs of individuals; in the meantime

  you must realize that whether we have been allotted to a god’s

  protection or abandoned to the whim of Fortune, you cannot

  invoke a worse curse on anyone than to wish him to be on bad

&
nbsp; terms with himself. But there is no reason for you to pray for

  the hostility of the gods towards anybody you think deserves

  punishment: he has their hostility, I tell you, even if he appears

  to be getting on well through their favour.

  3 Use your wits and look hard at human affairs as they are, not

  as they are described, and you will realize that our troubles more

  often turn out well than badly for us. See how often what was

  described as a disaster proved to be the initial cause of a blessing!

  How often an occurrence welcomed with loud rejoicing has, in

  fact, created steps to the edge of a precipice, and has raised even

  higher someone already highly placed, as if till then he was standing

  4 where one might safely fall! Still, this fall is not in itself an evil

  if you consider the final point beyond which nature has cast no

  one down. At hand is the end of all things, at hand, I tell you, is

  that point where the happy man is thrown out and the unhappy

  man is let out. With our hopes and fears we Prolong and extend

  both our happiness and our unhappiness. But if you’re wise you

  should measure all things in human terms, and contract the limits

  of your joys and your fears. Noreover, it is worth while enjoying

  nothing for long so that you don't fear anything for long.

  5 But why am I trying to restrict this evil of fear? You have no

  reason to regard anything as fearful: the things which disturb us

  and keep us petrified are quite illusory. None of us has tested

  their reality, but one man’s fear rubs off on another. No one has

  dared to approach the source of his anxiety and to learn the nature

  of the fear and any good there might be in it. Consequently, a

  false and empty circumstance still looks genuine because it has

  not been refuted. We must think it worth while to look hard at

  6 our fears, and it will soon be obvious how short-lived, uncertain

  and reassuring they are. This is the sort of confusion in our minds

  which struck Lucretius:3

  As at night children tremble, dreading all in the dark,

  So even in daylight our fears do afflict us.

  7 Well, then: with our daylight fears are we not more silly than any

  child? But you are wrong, Lucretius: it is not that we have fears

 

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